Members of the American screenwriters’ union are now allowed to return to work. They still have to vote on the proposed deal with the studios, but the strike has already ended – at midnight US West Coast time on Tuesday night. In Germany it is 9:00 am.
After an agreement was reached between union leaders and studio managers last weekend after a 146-day strike, But no details of the deal, which was described as “extraordinary” have been released yet; there is now some initial information. In addition, the screenwriters are now resuming their work a little sooner than expected – namely before the final vote on the new contract, which is currently only valid for the time being.
The vote will take place in early October
The 11,500 members of the American writers’ union Writers Guild of America (WGA) will vote on whether to accept the offer in early October 2023. If the contract is rejected, the strike will resume, although industry experts do not believe this will happen.
The new agreements between the union and the film studios would then apply until May 2026. The deal provides, among other things, for an arrangement for dealing with AI in the author world – this point was one of the most important topics in the negotiations. Because (to put it simply) the screenwriters saw their jobs threatened if artificial intelligences instead of humans wrote or revised scripts.
Industry magazines such as now report on what points the WGA board has reached agreement with the studios. We give you a brief overview of the most important agreements:
Using AI in screenwriting
Probably the most important thing from the preliminary deal: AI (originally AI, Artificial Intelligence) cannot write or rewrite literary material. Material created by an AI is not considered source material and therefore cannot be used to undermine an author’s claims.
Authors can decide for themselves whether to use AI to perform their work, as long as the client company agrees and its guidelines are followed. The company may prohibit, but not require, the use of AI in performing the writing task.
The WGA reserves the right to investigate whether a WGA member’s work was used to train an AI and then investigate the corresponding authorship of the text – credit would go to humans if appropriate.
Better participation in streaming evaluations
The so-called residuals, i.e. the monetary participation in z. B. The streaming success of films and series to which authors have contributed was also an important point of contention. New bonus payments have now been agreed if films and series written for streaming services become successful. This also includes streaming successes in the international exploitation of the films and series.
The payment of the bonuses and their amount depend on how high the budget was for a film or series and whether a certain audience threshold was exceeded in the first 90 days after release.
Team size at “Writers Rooms”
Especially with series, entire teams of screenwriters often work on the scripts for the relevant episodes – the so-called writers rooms. A minimum occupancy was established here. From now on, for a series season with a maximum of six episodes, at least three senior-level writers must be hired, including the showrunner himself. If the season contains 7 – 12 episodes, there must be five authors; if the season contains 13 episodes or more, a minimum of six positions are required.
An exception are series that are not worked on by a writers’ room, but where a solo author writes the entire script – this includes series like “Big Little Lies” and “The White Lotus”. The fact that the author alone writes all episodes from scratch must be contractually agreed upon before work begins. Only then will the above rule for the minimum number of authors for a series no longer apply.
Better pay, longer commitment
Other points in the new deal include: the guarantee of a “second step” for an author when he or she is working on a project. Under certain conditions set out in the agreement, this gives writers more security when they are employed. If they get an assignment, the studio must also hire them for the necessary second step. For example, anyone who writes a so-called treatment (a kind of story draft) can also write the script, and anyone who is hired directly for a script can do the first revision. If the studio does hire someone else, the original author should still be paid as if they had taken the second step.
And new percentages were also established for salary increases within a long contract period (for example, for several series seasons). Every year there is an increase of at least 5 percent, then 4 percent and then 3.5 percent.
What’s next in Hollywood?
The fact that the screenwriters’ strike has ended and that a vote on the acceptance of the new contracts will soon be held But that doesn’t mean normalcy is returning to the film world. Because the actors are still on strike. This means that not only can they not make new films and series, but they also cannot promote them, which was used by the studios as a reason why the theatrical releases of blockbusters like ‘Dune 2’ were postponed.
And like news media like According to reports, a strike by voice actors and performance capture artists is also imminent, which would impact not only the production of films and series, but also video games.