WGA Strike Says "Boo!" to Hollywood
Perhaps the most terrifying Halloween story in Hollywood today is the pending Writers Guild strike, and a series of stories in Variety describe the possible effects that strike could have over the next few months.
Josef Adalian and Michael Schneider write that late night comedy and variety shows will likely be hit the hardest. "Boom -- our show just shuts down," said SNL vet Amy Poehler. "It's just done. There is no backlog of scripts."
Even Hollywood's top talent agencies will feel the blow, according to Adalian and Schnieder in "Writers strike reality sets in":
The repercussions of scribes going out will surely be felt at Hollywood's major talent agencies. It's widely expected that a prolonged strike would result in serious layoffs; some agencies have already sketched out strike contingency plans involving salary deferments and other cost-cutting moves.
Meanwhile, Variety's Michael Fleming and Pamela McClintock report that the major film studios are better prepared, after spending the better part of a year trying to protect themselves from possible strike effects.
From the article "Studios prep back-up plan":
There are as many as 50 studio movies ready to go into production now if writers walk, and most of the majors have managed to muster together at least five pictures with scripts and plots strong enough to overcome the potential lack of a WGA member on set to execute revisions.
Unlike in television, which is far more exposed, the natural cycle of making movies means studios have had ample time to prepare for a walkout, whether by writers, whose contract expires at midnight, or actors, whose contract is up next summer.
"For now, it's a television strike, not a movie strike. Everybody has done their films for 2008 and part of 2009. It would need a very long strike, six or seven months, to have an impact," said one veteran industry player.
But Dave McNary writes that the WGA may still delay the strike until next week anyway. His article "WGA may delay strike" offers perhaps the best summary of the conflict so far, and also gets behind the scenes:
Jonathan Handel, a former WGA counsel who's an entertainment attorney at the TroyGould law firm, believes striking right away -- either on Thursday or Friday -- would be a PR disaster for the WGA.
"It's necessary for the guild to appear that it's operating in good faith at negotiations," he said. "If they were to strike in the next three days, the mediator would read them the riot act. A high-profile labor negotiation is a lot like a high-profile lawsuit in that a lot of it gets played out in the public arena."
Visit Variety for more news about the strike, including the possible benefits for indie films, a likely increase in news scheduling, and even the effects a strike could have on post-production houses.
It seems nearly impossible to keep with the minute-to-minute developments in this case. I just want to watch TV in peace.
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