All the way back in May — summer hadn’t even started! — the Writers Guild of America went on strike. That meant movies and TV shows, including most talk shows, were put on hold. For nearly five months the studio heads repped by the AMPTP refused to meet their demands. On Sunday night they finally did, with both sides reaching a tentative agreement. But the new contract still required a vote from guild members to officially bring the strike to a close. Well, guess what?
Per The Hollywood Reporter, that vote was successful. After 148 days — the second-longest WGA strike, after the one in 1988, which lasted a mere five days longer — the guild will officially return to work, clocking in starting at 12:01am PT on Wednesday. That means all that comes with being a member of the WGA — pitching, selling scripts, taking meetings, responding to notes — will be back in action.
After nearly a month of standstill, the WGA and the AMPTP got back to the bargaining table on last Wednesday. It still took another five days, but they clearly made progress, according to THR:
With top leaders in the room, the studios made changes to their position on issues like minimum staffing in television writers’ rooms and rewarding writers for the success of projects on streaming. Regulations on artificial intelligence proved to be a lasting sticking point, but the two sides eventually came to a compromise by Sunday night. In its communication to members about the agreement on Sunday, the WGA called the resulting agreement “exceptional.”
After the tentative agreement was announced on Sunday, certain shows were quick to put the gears back in motion. SNL announced they were working on starting back up. Ditto The Drew Barrymore Show, which came under fire when they announced they were prematurely returning…only to renege on that mere days later after substantial backlash.
Not that Hollywood is back in action. After all, there’s still the SAG-AFTRA strike, which began in July and currently has no plans to meet back up with the AMPTP. But perhaps having one of the two strikes officially resolved may give that one a nudge.
In the meantime, the WGA will be technically back to work in a matter of hours, as of this writing. Of course, it will surely be a bit awkward for writers taking meetings with execs who threatened to let them starve and go homeless.
(Via THR)