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AHEAD OF THE CURVE: US writers’ strike
Channel21 International | Winter 2022/23
Flipping the script US writers could strike if issues over streaming-era payment models are not addressed. But their position is potentially precarious as the studios and streamers have never had such broad access to international writing talent and coproduction partners. By Jordan Pinto
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f all the storm clouds that have gathered above the US content business over the past 12 months, perhaps the biggest is the looming showdown between television writers and Hollywood studios that could lead to the first writers’ strike in 15 years. Tensions between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the major studios, have simmered over the past year. But as the clock ticks down to May 1 – the day the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement with the studios expires – it is becoming increasingly clear that US TV scribes are getting ready to make a big noise about streaming-era economic models that they say do not compensate them fairly. In the pre-streaming era, writers could get staffed on 22-episode-per-season network shows that would provide their annual income, in addition to healthy residuals. However, in a streaming era when short-order seasons – typically anything from six to 10 episodes – have become the norm, a writer often needs to line up two or more jobs per year in order to make a solid wage, and the residual payments are a fraction of what they are in the network TV model.
Warner Bros Discovery dropped sci-fi series Westworld from HBO Max
Outside of economic factors, seeds of distrust have been sown over the past 12 months, especially with the recent trend for networks and studios to cancel shows en masse, often by reversing greenlight decisions. Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), which officially formed in April 2022 following the merger of Discovery and WarnerMedia, set the tone for the year with deep, sweeping cuts that saw shows and movies canned (most notably the Batgirl film), entire development slates axed, projects ‘un-renewed’ and titles including dystopian sci-fi Westworld removed from its streamer, HBO Max. Other companies have followed suit, among them AMC Networks, which scrapped shows such as 61st Street, starring Courtney B Vance, and sci-fi drama Moonhaven as part of a US$400m content write-down.
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