![]() ![]() “I wanted to make good work, but I also understand that this is a business. “I’m not so naive to think that this is all about art,” he says. ![]() If productions don’t resume by Labor Day, and many observers believe they won’t, that’s when Hollywood alarm bells will start ringing.įor one first-time showrunner, the strike has highlighted how much the executives he once called creative partners think of him as just another cog in the content machine. And once the strike is over, every network and streamer is going to want writers and producers to get back to work as quickly as possible. Terminating deals could further inflame tensions and imperil efforts to resume talks. ![]() That’s led to a near complete production shutdown that, at least for Netflix, has already led to cost savings. Unlike in 2007, Hollywood is dealing with dual strikes that also include some 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members. “Will they punish some of us if they can? I’m sure they can.”īut some insiders question whether jettisoning deals is the best move for the studios right now. (Contracts typically stipulate that force majeure can’t be invoked until 60 or 90 days have passed, though it varies studio to studio and deal to deal.) “A lot of the stuff they say is to make writers afraid and to fracture us,” Chris Keyser, Writers Guild of America negotiating committee cochair, told Vanity Fair from the picket line outside Fox on the first day of the strike. But they had to wait to terminate some deals. Many studios suspended deals with writers and producers in the early days of the current strike, essentially pausing all payments until the conflict ends. Less than a month before that work stoppage came to an end, five of Hollywood’s biggest television studios-including ABC Studios and CBS Paramount Network Television-slashed nearly 75 deals, including ones with Judging Amy creator Barbara Hall and Numb3rs executive producer Barry Schindel. That’s exactly what happened during the writers strike that began in 2007. While the studios aren’t likely to end deals with their most prolific and successful writers and producers, it could save them millions to cut ties with less vital deals. Though not every deal will get wiped away, she adds, “it is a genuine concern.” “The speculation is that the force majeure application will be utilized to kind of clean house, or reset,” says entertainment lawyer Elsa Ramo. There’s precedent for such a move, thanks to a common clause known as force majeure-or act of God-which gives the studios cover to terminate most deals in the event of a work stoppage brought about by a strike. Now, according to a new report from Variety, major studios and streamers are considering axing some of their agreements with writers as soon as this week.Ĭanceling agreements with writers could bring the ongoing battle to its nadir. Even before the strike began on May 2, there were rumblings that some executives, particularly those feeling beleaguered amid Hollywood’s painful shift to streaming, wouldn’t entirely mind a shutdown if it gave them an opportunity to cut costs and wipe some misguided deals from their books. “All my clients are worried about it,” says a rep. Some have even dialed up their agents, desperate for reassurance that the deals they signed before the strike will still exist when they return. ![]() As the writers strike stretches into the hellscape that is summer in Los Angeles, picketing scribes have started to panic about what work, exactly, will be waiting for them whenever their fight over a new contract finally ends. ![]()
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