But how long before the pen runs out of ink?
Image Credits: Mike Blake
The foundations of Hollywood are crumbling.
On 2 May 2022, the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) declared its first strike in 15 years. Today, thousands of writers continue to swarm the picket lines, demanding for equitable pay and fair working conditions from entertainment conglomerates under the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), such as Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros. Entertainment. Yet, with the strike lasting for more than 70 days and counting, this article will answer three fundamental questions about the WGA strike, and explain what it means for the future of the entertainment industry.
So, why are the writers striking anyways?
WGA negotiating committee member Adam Conover summarizes the writers’ current predicament best.
“The studios are trying to turn writing into a gig job; [...] If we don’t fight back, writing will cease to exist as a livable career.”
In essence, with the AMPTP composed of profit-oriented corporations whose primary objective is to minimize cost and increase revenue, writers have been relegated to the background, being reduced from essential to expendable. The WGA has published a plethora of proposals in their negotiations with the AMPTP, most of which are underscored by four primary demands.
Equitable Pay
To illustrate the current predicament that writers face with regards to their salary, let’s take Disney CEO Bob Iger as an example. In his triumphant return to the role of CEO in 2022, it was reported that $27 million will enter the bank account of Mr. Iger annually. In contrast, the average writer under the WGA toils for $69,510 a year, less than 1% of Iger’s annual salary.
Writers argue that such a wide income disparity is startling and unacceptable — after all, their work forms the backbone of the entertainment industry, and the basis of the AMPTP’s main source of revenue. To the extent that Disney can earn $55 billion USD in revenue for media and entertainment in 2022, the dwindling share that writers are receiving is as surprising as it is abysmal. The WGA contract aims to ensure that writers are not undercut by these capitalistic studios under the AMPTP, and concretises a “guild minimum” that defines the lowest salary that a WGA union member must be paid for their work, formally known as the Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA).
It is important to note then, that there has been an increasing number of writers operating at MBA levels. According to the WGA, the 2021-2022 TV season saw 49% of writers in television series working for minimum rates, with the median writer-producer pay declining by 23% over the past decade. One of the leading reasons behind this is the prevalence of streaming, where less episodes are ordered for each season of a television series made for streaming. Take Netflix’s Bridgerton, a highly lauded series with only 8 episodes per season, as opposed to the standard broadcast season of 20 episodes or more for shows such as NBC’s The Blacklist.
Due to the illusion of a decreased workload, studios under the AMPTP have taken the liberty to hire more writers under the MBA, or better yet, negotiate the writer’s rates individually. This would have been true, had the studios not decided to concurrently reduce the number of writers hired. This translates into writers being paid less for a similar workload within a shorter time frame, having to compete for 3 months of constant struggle in an unrelenting industry that attempts to exploit their labor for less money. With the status quo making it increasingly difficult for writers to earn livable wages, the WGA hopes to improve the MBA into one that is more suited for the current dynamics of the entertainment industry.
Residuals
First negotiated in 1953, residuals are a form of compensation that allows writers and actors to be paid for reruns of their work after its initial release, be it on television or in theaters. Such residuals are important to all who work in the entertainment industry, as it allows for a steady stream of passive income during downtimes or periods without work. This is especially true during the recent pandemic, which shut down production on most movies and television shows, leading to writers and actors alike having to depend on residuals to cover their living expenses.
Yet, the distribution of residuals has not caught up to the prevalence of streaming, generating dissent and disapproval amongst the WGA, a sentiment echoed by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA). With different calculations for the residuals attributed to reruns on broadcast television and streaming platforms, residuals have evolved into a pertinent issue that threatens the stability of income for those in the entertainment industry.
Take The Big Bang Theory, a renowned television show made for broadcast, where the former cast each earns $10 million annually in residuals. Now, compare that to the cast of This Is Us, a critically acclaimed series now streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. How much did leading actress Mandy Moore make in streaming residuals for the show? $0.01.
With reports from a plethora of writers, actors, and actresses on their dismal streaming residuals, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are demanding for change. Ideally, streaming residuals will be valued as highly as broadcast or theatrical residuals, if not even more. At the time of writing, the AMPTP has refused.
Mini Rooms
To process the surmounting hatred surrounding mini rooms, one must first understand the circumstances of a traditional writers room, and the career progression of a writer. Before streaming gained popularity, writers had to pitch their ideas and pilot script for a television show to a studio, who would then hire additional writers to refine the plot once the show had been picked up for production. With seven to eight writers collaborating on a script, senior writers were given opportunities to be hired as showrunners or executive producers of the show, while junior writers had the chance to be mentored by tenured experts in scriptwriting and producing. A natural career progression was formed, where low-level staff writers would rise the ranks and become a showrunner through years of experience and refining their expertise.
However, with profit-driven studios constantly searching for new ways to minimize cost, the rise of streaming allowed studios to create an excuse to make writers as disposable as possible — the mini room. Mini rooms often hire two to three writers, tasking them to pen several episodes for a proposed television show before it is confirmed for production. According to the AMPTP, mini rooms help studios to gauge the feasibility and reception of a television show before it begins production, allowing them to make more informed decisions when choosing which shows to produce. In the eyes of the WGA, the mini room is a sedative to the careers of writers.
Writers are often confined to displaying their creativity in the mini rooms -- the concept recently undertaken by Hollywood.
Image credits: Zohar Lazar
The problems inherent to mini rooms are threefold. First, mini rooms pay writers significantly less, as the writers are working on scripts for shows that may never be picked up for production. This diminishes the value and necessity of their scripts for the studios, forcing writers to endure and adapt to a volatile and oppressive industry that seeks to reduce their wages through any means possible.
Second, mini rooms increase the workload of writers due to the reduced size of the writers room. While writers are told that these scripts will be refined once production begins, studios rarely revise the scripts pitched in the mini rooms, simply using these “initial drafts” to produce the episodes that had already been written. This means that writers are creating full seasons of episodic series in mini rooms with less manpower and less pay, with little to no writing on shows once production begins. (This is also the reason why your favorite Netflix shows tend to get canceled after one or two seasons — studios do not want to hire writers for the amount that a regular writers room forces them to pay.)
Third, mini rooms separate the processes of writing and production, virtually ending the career progression of writers in the industry. With studios hoping to institutionalize writing as a pre-production affair detached from the production and filming of the show, writers find it difficult to gain the experience and expertise necessary to develop into executive producers or showrunners, as they are not even present when production begins. Not only does it disenfranchise writers from their own works, this plays to the advantage of studios, as producers and showrunners are paid more highly as opposed to writers, thus putting a limit on the maximum amount a writer can earn in his career.
To summarize the WGA’s sentiment on mini rooms, look no further than Game of Thrones’ author George R. R. Martin’s unfiltered comments.
“Mini rooms are abominations [...] If nothing else, the WGA needs to win on that issue.”
Artificial Intelligence
The rise of artificial intelligence poses a unique problem to writers, largely due to the uncertain and complex nature of its development. At present, artificial intelligence is too immature to be able to produce a compelling script for a movie, and its capabilities in the entertainment industry do not extend far beyond idea generation and grammatical checks. However, its significant growth in the past months is a warning sign to the WGA — many of the issues the WGA faces today originate from the WGA’s underestimation of the prevalence of streaming a few years prior.
To the WGA, utilizing artificial intelligence in scriptwriting poses an imminent threat to the security of their jobs, as well as the creativity of the eventual product. With its efficiency, artificial intelligence can generate pages worth of entertainment content in mere minutes, and revise completed scripts within seconds. Further, with tools such as ChatGPT being able to produce specific love poems upon request, it stands to see just how far artificial intelligence can evolve in terms of creativity and writing.
The WGA argues that artificial intelligence comes with its own host of problems, ranging from copyright infringement to sheer watchability of the shows that an unfeeling, heartless algorithm produces. Still, they are helpless to impede the advancement of technology, as artificial intelligence continues to grasp at some semblance of human emotion. As artificial intelligence threatens to render the scriptwriting profession obsolete, the WGA has made a pronounced, if not desperate, effort to secure human involvement in the scriptwriting process. The writers posit that the originality and inventiveness of plots written by artificial intelligence will become diminished, or worse, non-existent. The AMPTP has yet to generate its response.
It’s been two months, why aren’t the writers getting what they want?
The answer may lie beyond the confines of Hollywood, for studios under the AMPTP are no longer reacting solely to box office numbers. Simply put, the realm of entertainment has changed, and Hollywood has inevitably changed with it.
Let’s begin with the most obvious reason — cost. Acceding to the WGA’s demands, undoubtedly, will cause profit-oriented studios to observe a decrease in their returns, which is especially intolerable in this new era of post-pandemic entertainment. Two years of limited box office releases and shuttered cinemas have devastated the profits of large studios such as Disney and Paramount, compelling them to adapt by establishing their own streaming platforms in a desperate bid to recoup their substantial losses from canceled and delayed productions. As the entertainment industry emerges from the pandemic, studios have placed an emphasis on profit-making and recovery, making demands for higher wages and streaming residuals incongruent with their current agenda.
Further, with studios branching out to streaming platforms, the entertainment industry is no longer an industry driven by the value and creativity of its product, but rather a business that prioritizes the volume of content on its platform. After all, to maximize the number of subscriptions to a studio’s streaming platform, a studio must offer something for everyone to enjoy. This means that studios are now placing less value on the originality of the script, leading to the erosion of creativity in the industry. Writers may be lauded by audiences for a captivating plot, but the studios that hire them prefer their writing to possess a fascinating speed, even if the movie or episodic series adopts a formulaic approach in the end. In a world where two hours of Chris Pratt hunting dinosaurs earns more than award-winning movies on the nuances of culture or heart-wrenching films on the systemic cruelty of racism, it becomes apparent that the value of creativity has diminished drastically. With a writer’s role being perceived as less significant and less essential, the AMPTP has no incentive to change the current working conditions of writers, and has persisted in disregarding their demands.
Moreover, for those who believe that the WGA strike will affect the volume of content on such streaming platforms, it is important to note that large entertainment conglomerates tend to have a treasure trove of films and shows stashed away, and will simply release these productions onto their platforms to sustain the flow of content. This is why Disney is adding poorly-received films of the past such as Tron Legacy onto Disney+, in the hopes that such films will be reframed as “underappreciated” while masking the lack of current films being released onto their streaming platform.
What will the WGA Strike mean for America's most iconic export: culture?
Image Credits: Axelle Bauer
There may be a shortage of Hollywood productions due to the WGA strike, but a crucial point allowing the AMPTP to hold its ground is the influx of content internationally, and in other areas of entertainment. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike only affects writers and actors operating in North America, particularly Hollywood, which leaves a vacancy for films and series from other regions to fill. Yet, the neverending stream of content from Asia and Europe, coupled with its rising popularity, does not fare well for the struggling writers and actors that have just stemmed off their source of income. With foreign shows such as Lupin, Money Heist, and Squid Game gaining international prominence, studios under the AMPTP can simply invest more in foreign film industries, creating a demand that international film talents are eager to fulfill. Beyond streaming, audiences are now getting their daily dose of entertainment in other means, especially through unscripted short-form content on social media. We live in a world where reality skits and challenge videos reign supreme on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, with our attention spans decreasing with every passing month. The public has become increasingly indifferent towards new releases, with only a few famed actors being able to draw out large crowds to the cinemas. Having less Hollywood films and series to watch is not a new experience to audiences — two months of halted production is incomparable to the two years of experience that the world recently endured.
In essence, the AMPTP is looking to retain as much profits as possible, and with the erosion of creativity and the prominence of international productions, studios are no longer shackled by the demands of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. To make matters worse, audiences have alternative sources of entertainment that they can turn to should Hollywood be paralyzed by the strikes, causing them to be largely unaffected and indifferent towards the outcome of the strike.
Is there any hope for the WGA strike?
Maybe. Although the odds are stacked against them, worsening public perception of profit-oriented entertainment conglomerates and solidarity from other unions in the entertainment industry signals a possibility for justice to champion.
With SAG-AFTRA going on strike in support of the WGA, the entertainment industry in Hollywood has effectively shut down. No new scripts can be written, neither can existing scripts be filmed or produced, bringing Hollywood to a standstill for the first time in 63 years. Studios under the AMPTP may turn to international films to sustain their profits, but ultimately, the majority of their revenue originates from Hollywood productions, the very same productions that they have invested millions into due to the heightened demand post-pandemic. On a purely profit-based perspective, acceding to the WGA’s demands would be detrimental, but allowing the strikes to continue will prove more harmful in the long run.
Further, there is much backlash from the public against the AMPTP for their attempts to maximize profits at the expense of the writers and actors in the industry. Disparaging comments and public demonstrations are a common sight, with people threatening to boycott the AMPTP should they refuse to negotiate with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. As writers and actors alike struggle to tolerate the lack of income, individuals from all over the world have offered support through donations and resources, with the establishment of the Entertainment Community Fund boosting the stamina of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The message to the studios is clear: if you will not support your writers, we will.
On a more ideological tangent, audiences are showing signs of ennui with regards to the deluge of content that studios are flooding them with, signaling a return to an era where creativity is valued over volume. Major studios can no longer excuse the formulaic content that they produce, as the public demands for productions that are worth watching amidst the influx of shows. This has forced studios to scale back the quantity and efficiency of their productions to focus more on quality — Marvel Studios pushed back its timeline significantly following intense criticism of their recent episodic series and lackluster movies. This is supported by the rising success of indie films that prioritize plot over visual effects and stardom, with A24’s Everything Everywhere All At Once generating more revenue than big-budget cookie-cutter films such as DC’s The Flash. The resurgence of the value of creativity is a positive outlook for the WGA strike, as it highlights the ineffectiveness of the current oppressive and rushed system that writers face, while emphasizing the importance of irreplicable originality in scriptwriting.
This is a war of attrition, one where the AMPTP is prepared to dig in for the long haul. Studio executives have proclaimed that “the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”. The road ahead for the WGA is long and arduous. It remains to be seen if the pen will run out of ink.
References
Kilkenny, K. (2023, March 14). Writers Guild claims members are “falling behind” amid streaming transition. The Hollywood Reporter. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/writers-guild-streaming-report-members-falling-behind-1235352341/
Patten, D. (2023, July 11). Hollywood Studios’ WGA strike endgame is to let writers go broke before resuming talks in fall. Deadline. https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/
Rice, L. (2023, July 18). Where are my residuals? Actors / Writers share horror stories on picket line, social media. Deadline. https://deadline.com/2023/07/residuals-actors-writers-horror-stories-wga-sag-strike-1235440013/
Schumpeter. (2023, May 10). Writers on strike beware: Hollywood has changed forever. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/05/10/writers-on-strike-beware-hollywood-has-changed-for-ever
Schumpeter. (2023, July 19). Hollywood’s blockbuster strike may become a flop. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/business/2023/07/19/hollywoods-blockbuster-strike-may-become-a-flop
Wilkinson, A. (2023, April 25). Hollywood’s writers are on strike. Here's why that matters. Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/23696617/writers-strike-wga-2023-explained-residuals-streaming-ai
Wilkinson, A. (2023, July 13). Hollywood’s historic double strike, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/7/13/23793828/sag-aftra-strike-wga-hollywood
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