Strike in Hollywood: Authors walk off the job with immediate effect

What everyone feared has happened: Hollywood's screenwriting community is walking off the job with immediate effect, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) officially announces. This comes after weeks of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) failed to reach an agreement on improved working conditions for writers

This is likely to be a repeat of the situation that led to a 100-day writers' strike in 2007, with the same far-reaching consequences for the entire industry. At the time, more than 60 TV shows were cancelled, film projects postponed and gala shows cancelled. The financial loss to the Californian economy alone was estimated at two billion dollars.

What exactly is the strike about?

At the heart of the negotiations is the exploding growth of streaming services. According to the Writers Guild, they mean that previously functioning remuneration packages for writers are no longer effective. One example: When films or series are repeated on linear television, authors receive a so-called residual fee for this. These reruns, and therefore the residual royalties, are increasingly disappearing in the age of streaming.

In addition, the demand for series formats on streaming platforms has changed. Whereas a season used to usually consist of 20 episodes or more, Netflix and the like are tending towards seasons with ten or even fewer episodes. As writers are paid per episode rather than per season, this leads to a lower income.

The AMPTP - which represents major studios such as Amazon, Disney, NBC Universal, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Bros - argues that there are significantly more series than before and therefore more work. The Writers Guild disagrees: series with more episodes lead to longer permanent positions. There are fewer and fewer of them. Recently, studios have even introduced daily rates, which means that writers have to shuffle from job to job. This in turn has triggered a destructive competition: whoever demands the least money for writing gets the job. As a result, working conditions have deteriorated massively for everyone. A new collective labour agreement is therefore needed.

"We are disappointed, but not surprised. The companies have never taken our concerns seriously without at least the threat of a fight," said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a member of the union's negotiating team, a week ago. The WGA published a list of its demands and the counter-proposals offered by the AMPTP

Finally, the guild is calling for new standards to be set for the use of artificial intelligence in the face of its rapid development. There are fears that chatbots such as ChatGPT and Co. will soon become competitors. Most recently, for example, games developer Ubisoft announced a new tool called Ubisoft Ghostwriter, in which an AI is supposed to "support" authors in writing dialogues.

What impact will the strike have?

As in 2007, the picture is likely to be bleak. TV formats such as late-night shows, which are extremely popular in the USA, will be hit first, as they rely on topical texts by authors. Shows such as "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert", "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" have already been cancelled. Daily soaps, i.e. soap operas like "Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten" here in Germany, whose episodes are usually filmed a day or two before they are broadcast, are likely to be the next to get into trouble.

If the strike continues for several weeks, series with annual seasons will also be affected by the work stoppage: As a rule, their scripts are written in May, produced in summer and broadcast from autumn onwards.

Major series productions, such as the second season of "The Last of Us" planned for 2024 or the final season of "Stranger Things", will then have to take the strike into account. As in 2007, the gaps created by the postponements are likely to be filled mainly with reruns or reality shows that require hardly any writing work. In addition, some series will probably be heavily abridged and produced with unfinished scripts. Prominent example: the fourth season of "Lost", which was broadcast in 2008 a year late and with only 14 instead of the usual 23 episodes.

Cinema films are not immune to strikes either. They have a much longer lead time. Productions can be planned flexibly around the strike. And films that will be released in cinemas in 2023 will already be shooting or in post-production by then anyway. But if the writers were to strike again for more than 14 weeks, the 2024 film year could change radically.

In this case, the scripts for films due to be released in cinemas in 2024 would simply be missing at this point in time, without which filming would be almost impossible. Studios could bridge the first half of 2024 by postponing films planned for the end of 2023 until next year. Some productions could even benefit from less packed schedules.

However, studios will have to get creative for the second half of the year. Unfinished or non-existent scripts would then have to be written by people who are not members of the Writers Guild - with a major loss of quality. A prominent example of this is "James Bond: Quantum of Solace", which was filmed by Swiss director Marc Forster with virtually no script and was released late in the cinema in 2008 - with corresponding disappointing reviews and modest box office success for a Bond film.

What's next?

In the short term, the future of many authors is uncertain. After all, it's not just studios that suffer millions in losses during a strike. Writers also don't earn any money during the work stoppage. The Writers Guild knows this. However, it maintains that it is in its interest to use the authors' strike as a means of exerting the greatest possible pressure in order to obtain a fair contract for everyone. Her statement accordingly:

It is therefore not known when the strike will end.