After six weeks of intensive negotiations with the major Hollywood studios and companies such as Warner, Disney, Sony, Paramount, but also Netflix, Amazon and Apple about a new contract for fair payment Hollywood writers’ unions have unanimously decided to go on strike. That means: from now on no more members who are organized in one of the unions work. The direct impact can be seen in the talk show business. Without their gag writers, they no longer go on the air in solidarity with such presenters as Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and Co. The formats will already expire on May 2, 2023.
Many of you are certainly not really affected by this, but the last major strike, which lasted from November 2007 to February 2008, was a profound experience that shocked the industry and also had an impact on many series productions that the public felt. Evergreens like the “CSI” titles only got half seasons, hit shows like “Breaking Bad” or “Lost” had to end their seasons early – not always for the worst, as a famous “Breaking Bad” anecdote reveals: it was originally the planning for Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to die in the season one finale, screenwriter Vince Gilligan reconsidered the character’s fate during the several-month enforced hiatus.
“Quantum of Solace” was “fucked” by the last strike
The most famous victim of the strike at the time is a “James Bond” movie – and here too there was no change for the better. Screenwriter Paul Haggis said he finished the script for Quantum of Solace two hours (!) before the strike went into effect – but according to several people involved, it wasn’t really a finished screenplay, but actually a preliminary draft that still needed a lot of work .
Actually, there would have been several weeks before shooting started in January 2008 to fine-tune it. But that was not possible because of the strike. Although the screenplay for “Quantum of Solace” was not really finished, the main shooting started (after some audience scenes “on suspicion” had already been shot in the summer of 2007), because everything was already arranged for this schedule . Daniel Craig later said bluntly, “The strike ruined our movie!” Since no author was allowed to lend a hand, he always adapted the screenplay himself between scenes, but he had to admit that that was not his strong point, that he could only save himself a little that way.
Will there be another “Bond” disaster in 2023? It doesn’t look like it yet!
It is unclear whether there will be disasters again this time as a result of the strike, which the public will also notice. But it seems Hollywood has been better prepared and taken as many precautions as possible. After all, it has been expected for several months that there will be a strike in May 2023. Here was learned from the example “Quantum of Solace”. Anyone who is about to shoot a movie should already have the script ready. Where the scripts are not finished yet, you will have to be patient and wait for the shooting to begin. Of course, depending on how long the strike lasts, such delays could cost money or cause stars to drop out and focus on projects ready to shoot.
Even with the range, the effects are probably significantly smaller than they were 15 years ago. The productions of the classic American TV channels are often produced only weeks in advance, which also applies to scripts. But only the daily soaps will soon have to stop broadcasting new episodes due to the strike. Many TV series that follow the regular season broadcast from fall to spring have already finished production because they are about to go on summer vacation anyway. Only if the strike lasts longer could there be problems in production for fall 2023, which could lead to later series starts. A longer break could of course also cause one or the other broadcaster to consider whether Series X really should be continued.
Why is there actually a strike?
Even though the new strike may have a much smaller impact on us movie and series fans, it will come at some cost in Hollywood. That’s why unions are hoping that major studios and streaming services will give in and give in to the demands. But what are the authors actually asking for? Your list of requirements is of course very complex and extensive, not to be reproduced here in its entirety, but in short: It’s about fair payment in the streaming age.
These include raising the lower limit for a benefit, which has remained unchanged for 15 years, which in any case corresponds to an adjustment to inflation. The point is that the minimum limits apply to everyone – including streaming productions. And it’s about compensating for the missing residuals in streaming productions. These are additional payments to authors for reuse or repetition. Those who have written a feature film will receive extra money if the film is later released on Blu-ray, sold to a streaming service and shown on TV. But that doesn’t apply to a Netflix movie – because most of the time it will only run on Netflix forever and never get an exploit chain again. In addition, it is also about dealing with artificial intelligence, the deployment of author teams in so-called writers’ rooms for longer series and payments in pension and health insurance.
It is also read over and over that the impact of the strike could theoretically fade away because there are young authors who take every opportunity who are not organized in the unions and who could simply take on projects as scabs. Even if there were individual examples of this during the 2007/2008 strike, this is very unlikely, as there are hardly any other participants in such projects. Hollywood’s various unions like to compete, but support each other in such matters. Those who are organized in the other unions will not want to work on a production with scab scripts.
Especially numerous stars and many administrators have declared their solidarity with the strikers. After all, many of them know author friends who, despite permanent employment, can no longer pay the rent or have to keep their heads above water with side jobs. They agree that many authors get far too small a slice of the Hollywood pie, apart from the big names in the industry who write for blockbusters.