Over the past month, American television viewers have managed to sleep well: there is nothing to watch on TV, because the writers of the most popular television shows are on strike in Hollywood. Producers have multimillion-dollar advertising contracts on fire, channel ratings are falling, but the parties to the conflict are in no hurry to seek a compromise.
Americans are especially worried about the fact that they cannot see a talk show with David Letterman and Jay Leno on the evening air. The channel repeats old episodes, which does not save the situation, because the popularity of this and many other TV shows is that their plots are based on the events of the past day. And there is no one to write scripts now.
Hollywood is not only a city of stars. It is also a city of cinema workers unions. Among others, it is home to the headquarters of the Film and Television Producers Alliance (ACTP), led by Nick Counter, and the Writers Guild of American (SAS), led by David Young.
Like cats and dogs
Writers and producers have never had particularly warm feelings for each other. From the early days of cinema, it became clear that without a quality script written by a professional writer, good movie do not remove. And from the very beginning, movie bosses were forced to put up with the existence of screenwriters, whom they treated as second-class people. Screenwriters paid producers and studio owners in the same coin. Far from always, peaceful coexistence is the best illustration of the relationship between the heads of trade unions of producers and screenwriters. Counter and Young cannot stand each other and do not even try to hide their, to put it mildly, mutual antipathy.
In 1988, this antipathy escalated into open confrontation: the screenwriters went on strike for the first time. In 2001, they again were going to stop working, but at the last minute the leaders of the GAS and ACTP managed to agree.
The main reason for all the strikes is the unfair (from the writers' point of view) distribution of the profits of the television and film business. Each time it was about deductions from the sold media. In the movie business they are called residuals. The only difference between the strikes, which are 19 years apart, is that in the last century, screenwriters wanted to get more money from sold video cassettes with their films and TV shows, and now from DVDs and other modern media, as well as from sales via the Internet.
The main battles unfolded around the DVD. No wonder, considering that this year movie studios hope to earn $16.4 billion from DVD sales. Revenues from the sale of films via the Internet are much more modest - only $158 million, that is, 10 times less! Another $194 million should be brought to Hollywood studios by selling TV programs via the Internet.
A feather was equated to a bayonet
The Guild of Screenwriters, formed in 1941 and divided into two branches - "East" and "West", has 12 thousand members with a little. Of course, among them there is a very narrow stratum (several hundred people) of those who feel financially quite comfortable and secure. Included in this circle receive $ 1 million - 4 million for blockbuster scripts. Annual income of over $ 5 million for the elite GAS is not such a rarity.
Scripts for popular series are also well paid. Of course, such well-known television writers as John Wells (" Ambulance”), Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing”), David Kelly (“Ally McBeal”, “The Practice”), Steven Bocho (“NYPD Blue”) need not worry about the future. But the vast majority of screenwriters live from movie to movie or show to show. It is extremely difficult to get a job, but it is even more difficult to keep this place. About 48% of ASG members on the West Coast are unemployed. In between orders, they live on deductions.
“In our profession, consistency is a dream,” sighs Diane Sun, scriptwriter for Law & Order. Criminal intentions”, by the way, the mother of three children. We have to change jobs frequently. Therefore, royalties are an important part of our income.”
Both sides are right in their own way. The writers accuse the producers of paying them pennies, and the producers accuse the writers of being inflexible and acting like stubborn children and rejecting any constructive suggestions out of the blue.
Nick Counter argues that the doubling of royalties to 10 cents, which the writers demand, is out of the question. The new media market, he says, is still too volatile for studios to pay screenwriters more than 5 cents. The film business, explains the head of the producers' union, is going through hard times. better times. The cost of films and television programs is rising faster than expected. As a result, anything can be predicted only for a very short period of time: only a few months, but not years.
Falling stars
Counter, however, is silent about another important reason for the sharp increase in costs in the film business. From the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford to Clooney's Ocean's 11, 12 and 13, Hollywood has always adored the stars. However, now the enthusiastic attitude towards them is slowly beginning to change. Exaggerated superstar demands make films unprofitable even before filming begins.
According to the Global Media Intelligence (GMI) study "Do Movies Make Money?", 132 films produced by six of Hollywood's top studios in 2006 would generate losses of nearly $2 billion.
After another "golden" period, which lasted from 2000 to 2004, the growth of income in the cinema slowed down sharply. Experts from GMI believe that several hits from last year (Mission Impossible 3, Superman Returns, The Girls of My Dreams and Miami Vice) either did not bring the expected profit, or even became unprofitable.
Of course, the fall in DVD sales, the constantly rising cost of advertising and marketing campaigns, and the need for ever more impressive special effects are to blame. However, the main reason is the human factor, superstars.
Roger Smith, the author of the GMI report, who has over 30 years of experience in the film industry, points out that top actors, directors and producers are getting bigger deals every year. Their other distinguishing feature is the inclusion of a clause according to which, in addition to royalties, that is, a fixed amount, they receive a percentage of box office receipts, DVD sales, etc. GMI estimates that last year this item cost Hollywood at least $3 billion. Next to them, the $121.3 million royalties paid by film studios to screenwriters seem like a trifle.
Superstars like Tom Cruise or, for example, Tom Hanks are guaranteed not only 20 million dollars in fees, but also up to 20% of the box office. In blockbuster cases, that's a lot of money. Latest "Pirates caribbean”, for example, raised half a billion dollars.
What this practice leads to is eloquently evidenced by the example of the third “Mission”. Tom Cruise, who starred in leading role and produced the picture, earned $ 95 million from it. The film grossed $ 400 million. The share of the Paramount studio, which invested approximately $ 150 million, was only $ 10 million. It is not surprising that, having made a simple calculation, the bosses of the film studio decided to part with their main star soon after the failure of the film. Even 14 years of fruitful cooperation did not stop them.
Investing in the movie business has always been considered a risky investment. Blockbusters usually covered the losses of the bulk of the pictures. However, now they themselves bring less and less profit.
Usually all commercial calculations are kept in deep secrecy. The exception is the Disney film studio, which has never hidden who gets how much. In 2006, she paid her actors $554 million, almost four times more than five years before.
It would seem that one can only be glad for the growing incomes of the stars. But the point is that the relationship between star status actors and box office every year is getting weaker and weaker.
“Now there is a new characteristic for predicting the commercial outcome of a given film project,” writes Peter Barth, editor of Variety, an authoritative film newspaper. - If a superstar is at the head of the list of actors employed in a film, then large profits should not be expected. Yes, stars can help launch a film, but they can no longer guarantee the ultimate commercial success. More and more producers are coming to the conclusion that the very concept of a movie star is becoming an anachronism.
The list of stars whose films did not live up to expectations or even became a failure is long. It includes George Clooney, and Ben Stiller, and Jodie Foster, and Halle Berry, and Brad Pitt, and Mark Wahlberg, and Joaquin Phoenix, and Jude Law, and other famous actors and actresses. Of the 15 most commercially successful Hollywood films this year, only three featured superstars. These are The Bourne Ultimatum with Matt Damon, Die Hard with Bruce Willis and Wild Pigs with John Travolta. The records were such low-budget films without stars and special effects as “Knocked Up” and “Paranoia”.
It turns out that the producers and owners of film studios are to blame for the sharp increase in the cost of film production, making the wrong bet on famous actors rather than a quality script.
Night of all saints
It is probably no accident that the expiration of the next three-year contract between ACTP and GAS fell on the night of October 31 to November 1, that is, Halloween. The fruitless negotiations dragged on for five months and, of course, could not end in one day.
After eight hours of fruitless deliberations, the ACTP press release stated that the writers' excessive demand for DVD sales royalties has become an insurmountable obstacle to continuing a constructive dialogue and reaching a new agreement.
Of course, David Young could continue negotiations with the producers and offer the guild members to work under the old agreement for the duration of them, but he did not do so. On the one hand, Young, a veteran trade unionist who previously led the builders' union, is much more radical than his predecessor, John Wells, who managed to maintain a fragile peace by maneuvering. On the other hand, back in the summer, when it became more and more obvious that the negotiations would reach an impasse, a survey was conducted among the members of the AGM. 90% of writers were in favor of a strike.
The strikers are now picketing 14 Hollywood studios. On their posters there are slogans: "No contract - no scenarios!", "Handles down!", "Give us back our money!" They go to pickets like they go to work: from 9 am to 5 pm and work in 4-hour shifts.
Most of the stars that experts blame for the crisis that has gripped the film business support screenwriters. Jay Leno went out to picketers who were rallying outside the NBC building in Burbanks, where his show is filmed, and treated them to donuts. Eva Longoria, star of Desperate Housewives, fed pizza to the strikers who had gathered outside the set of the series. Other actors and hosts expressed their solidarity with the writers.
But, of course, not everyone is ready to support the strikers, because the whole industry can suffer because of them. Major studios are already planning the suspension or complete cessation of work on dozens of long-term projects. Thousands of employees of television production companies may soon be out of work.
For such cases in labor contracts Hollywood has a force majeure clause. It allows you to terminate contracts in crisis situations. Usually a person is first sent on 4 to 8 weeks of unpaid leave and then fired. By the way, it is this item that allows you to close low-rated projects.
Keane will not
Comparing current events with athletics, experts advise not to tune in to the sprint, but to the marathon, hinting that the strike may be protracted. Of course, she did not take producers and studio owners by surprise. Everyone prepared for the war as best they could.
Filmmakers are in the best position. Expecting a strike, film studios throughout September and October, not sparing money, bought dozens of scripts. Quality aside, which has often been sacrificed in such a rush, filmmaking should, in theory at least, last the next year. However, then all the same collapse.
Things are much worse for those who shoot serials. Of course, their producers also tried to make a reserve, but, given the specifics of the product, one can assume without much risk of making a mistake: scripts prepared for future use will not last long.
Take, for example, at least the same "Desperate Housewives". Mark Cherry, the author of the idea and the head of the screenwriting team, of course, is one of the highly paid members of the CEO. Nevertheless, he dreams that the strike ends as soon as possible. Cherry and her team, like the rest of the writers, are not working now. Spectators, it seems, are waiting for a greatly truncated season. At the beginning of the strike, the director and producers had 9 scripts left. Until the end of the year, they somehow hold out, and then, if the strike is not over by then, the shooting will have to be stopped.
Approximately in the same position, producers and others popular series. The directors managed to shoot 13 out of 24 episodes of the Ugly Betty series, the analogue of which is our film Don't Be Born Beautiful.
In Lost, half of the episodes were also filmed - 8 out of 16. However, this series starts its season in February. So the situation may still change in better side. Things are getting worse with 24, where only 8 or 9 episodes out of 24 are ready. New season was supposed to start in January, but has already been announced to be postponed to spring. Another well-known American series in Russia, Prison Break, is also half ready. And only fans of The Simpsons need not worry. They have all 22 episodes ready.
A catastrophic situation has developed with the talk show. American favorites The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Daily Show and The Late Show with David Letterman were the first major victims of the writers' strike. Already on Monday evening, on the very first day of the strike, old programs began to be shown.
At first, the producers intend to plug holes in the program grid with repetitions. If the strike drags on, then it may be necessary to resort to impromptu again, as Letterman and Johnny Carson did in 1988.
The organizers of Hollywood awards ceremonies may also have problems. The Golden Globes are less than two months away, and the Oscars will be handed out a month later. If most of the laureates write their speeches themselves, which is very noticeable by the standard set of thanks to God, parents, grandparents and other relatives, then there is no one to write complex scripts for the ceremonies themselves. As well as the big monologue of the main host, which this year will be Jon Stewart.
Of course, there remains a faint hope for the strikebreakers. 19 years ago, some screenwriters were still working. True, they had to temporarily give up the right to vote in the guild, but they continued to pay membership dues. In 1988, such "traitors" to a large extent contributed to the defeat of colleagues. Therefore, now the leadership of the GAS, one must think, has taken measures in advance. There are many ways to influence strikebreakers. For example, after the end of the strike, they may simply not be returned to the full status of a member of the GAS.
The developments in California and New York are also being closely watched in Canada. Global and CTV, the main Canadian television channels, buy a lot of programming from the United States.
It is still too early to talk about the outcome of the strike. On the side of the film bosses - material resources, the strikers - the determination to restore justice.
The writers try not to remember the 1988 strike. It lasted 22 weeks and ended in their defeat. Everything remains the same. True, some changes in television, which suffered losses in the amount of half a billion dollars, did take place then. TV companies have lost 9 - 10% of the audience. Viewers switched to cable TV and reality shows.
Reality shows, no doubt, will be among the winners this time. The fact is that the scripts for them are written by screenwriters who are not members of the GAS, and therefore do not participate in the strike.
Broadway stagehands joining the strike are unlikely to help the writers because they are pursuing their own goals. Not surprisingly, they have already sat down at the negotiating table with the producers.
But 4,500 truck drivers who are also ready to join the strike can help the scriptwriters. So far, however, their leadership is feverishly deciding what tactics to follow. If the drivers transporting equipment and props go on strike, the movie bosses will have a hard time.
Of course, in Los Angeles they are well aware that the strike will have a negative impact not only on the cinema, but on the entire economy of the city as a whole. Shooting a film with a budget of $ 70 million creates up to 1,000 jobs and provides orders for many local businesses and firms. A day of strike costs Los Angeles about $80 million. It is no coincidence that Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of the City of Angels, met with both producers and writers, but all his mediation efforts were unsuccessful.
Many hope that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be more successful in this matter, who knows the whole kitchen of cinema as well as the strikers and wants to help establish peace. "It is very important to resolve this issue as soon as possible," he says, "because the strike has a huge negative impact on the state's economy."
There is still hope for a new agreement. Two weeks after the start of the strike, the parties returned to the negotiating table and made mutual concessions. In any case, the writers seem to have given up on the demand to double the royalties from DVD sales. Yet skeptics and even cautious optimists prefer to hope for the good but prepare for the bad. "Get ready for a long and cold winter reruns and reality shows,” they advise American viewers.
US screenwriters' strike that began on November 5, 2007 and lasted until February 12, 2008.
The Writers Guild's demand was for a new contract with the Film and Television Producers Union, which would increase the percentage of royalties to authors for sales of film and television products on DVD and on the Internet. During the negotiations, the parties could not reach an agreement, as a result, the scriptwriters announced the start of a strike that lasted 100 days. The strike was attended by the western and eastern branches of the US Screenwriters Guild, they were supported by the Screen Actors Guild, many popular actors and politicians.
The strike caused multimillion-dollar losses to the studios. The shooting of many television series was suspended for a while, the shooting of some feature films and talk shows, several film award ceremonies were cancelled.
The decision to end the strike was made on February 12, 2008, and on February 26, the Writers Guild announced the signing of a new contract with the producers.
Chronicle of events
Negotiations between the Guild of Screenwriters and the Union of Film and Television Producers were launched on July 16, 2007. On November 1, 2007, the three-year contract between writers and producers, which regulates the expulsion procedure, expired. Money screenwriters from film studios. On November 4, 2007, the scriptwriters broke off negotiations with the Producers' Union and announced the start of a strike.
The parties managed to conclude a preliminary agreement only on February 8, 2008; total number members of the Guild, the strike was stopped.
Results of the strike
According to the signed final agreement between screenwriters and producers, the royalties of screenwriters from DVD sales were increased, also for film and television products distributed via the Internet, Cell phones and other modern distribution channels, writers will receive a flat fee for the first two years and 2% of sales profits for the third year after the start of the agreement.
The economic damage from the strike is estimated differently. The total losses are estimated according to various sources from 1.3 to 2.1 billion dollars. According to the head of department economic development Los Angeles by Jack Kaiser, the total economic damage from the strike to Los Angeles cost US$2.5 billion. The cancellation of the Golden Globe ceremony in January 2008 alone cost the organizers $60 million. Many studios terminated contracts with striking screenwriters. According to research company Nielsen, as of the end of January 2008, the weekly audience of TV channels has decreased by 21%. Some American TV channels have lost up to 50% of their audience.
Notes
- Steve Gorman Hollywood writers vote to lift 14-week strike. Reuters (February 13, 2008). Archived
- US screenwriters have launched the biggest strike in 20 years. Lenta.ru (November 5, 2007). Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
- Q&A: Hollywood writers" strike (English). BBC (13 February 2008). Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 2 January 2009.
- Clinton and Obama backed striking screenwriters. Lenta.ru (November 6, 2007). Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
- The Golden Globes ceremony has been cancelled. Lenta.ru (January 8, 2008). Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
- Letter from the Presidents (English) . Writers Guild of America, West (February 26, 2008). Archived from the original on March 23, 2012. Retrieved January 2, 2009.
Preparing a new strike. Union leaders prepared for negotiations with Hollywood studios by exposing them to " ultimate, very expensive and almost impossible requirements”, and the deadline for their consideration is only two weeks. As sources suggest, the Guild is preparing to go on strike, for which they need a formal refusal of the studios from the first offer.
« There is no chance that the WGA requirements can even be considered in two weeks, - says the source of the publication. - This was a move calculated to ensure that, after the refusal, there would be a reason to vote for the authorization of the strike.».
What does this mean for everyone else? Why did the writers decide on a new strike? What exactly are they protesting against? Who can be harmed by a strike? I tried to answer these questions.
When will it become clear whether there will be a strike?
The current agreement between the studios and the Writers Guild to compensate for the work of the latter expires on May 1. This agreement was in effect for three years, but in fact most of the conditions in it have been working for decades without changes. Before May, the writers are unlikely to go on strike.
However, whether it will start at all will become clear earlier - before the end of next week, the so-called “authorization vote” should take place within the Guild, which will give the heads of the trade union the authority to declare a general strike. According to the comments of insiders and sources of specialized publications Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, a strike is inevitable.
In total, the Writers Guild of America seriously protested three times - in 1960, in 1988 and in 2007-2008. And if the first two strikes outside the US almost no one noticed, then the protest of 2007-2008 proved that in a globalized content market, the problems of the industry in the US will affect all territories.
Why are the writers unhappy?
The simple answer is the amount of money. A complex answer is a complex one.
Since the 1980s, screenwriters have been considered the least protected category of employees in Hollywood and significantly lose out to both the Director's Guild and the Actor's Guild on standard contract terms. In addition, comedy writers earn substantially lower salaries than drama writers, and writers from traditionally lucrative industries have lost a significant portion of their profits over the past 10 years.
By many estimates, Hollywood's net income in 2016 was, for a moment, $51 billion. This figure includes all the studios' profits from theatrical, television and streaming content. The scriptwriters believe that they put a lot of effort into this - and received the smallest, in comparison with their colleagues, compensation.
In many ways, it is the scriptwriters who are responsible for the so-called "television renaissance" - the flowering of high-quality and diverse serial production. The problem is that screenwriters who write for cable and streaming broadcasters and platforms are paid substantially less for their work than their on-air television counterparts. In addition to the fact that short seasons of 8-13 episodes are accepted on cable and streaming (and screenwriters receive a fee per episode), their minimum rate is almost half that of an on-air channel writer. That is, the screenwriter of, say, "Chicago Fire" earns not two, but almost four times more than the screenwriter of, say, "True Detective", and more than five times more than the screenwriter of "The Man in the High Castle."
What are the writers asking for?
Increases in standard royalties, proportional increase in royalties if the series has a "short season", equality between compensation schemes for screenwriters - no matter what platform they write for, social guarantees for screenwriters (minimum health insurance, maternity leave- unpaid, but without loss of work), an annual increase in the minimum fee by 3%, like directors, the right to deduct a percentage of the profits for the sale of content in addition to the minimum fee.
In addition, the screenwriters emphasize that there is still a problem of discrimination based on gender and race, including in compensation for labor (translated into human, screenwriters and authors of other races and nationalities receive a smaller fee than their counterparts - white male Americans - for the same job).
If there is a strike, which shows will be affected?
Exactly 10 years ago, the WGA already announced a strike, and if you take a closer look at the 2007-2008 television and film season, everything becomes clear. But the first to suffer, of course, is the viewer.
The most vulnerable category, which will be the first to feel the consequences of the strike, is considered to be daily and weekly entertainment television. First of all, comedy shows in the Late Night format are under threat, because they rely on a strong team of comedy writers. Therefore, under the knife - and out of the air - the projects of John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, as well as the legendary " Saturday night V live". In the meantime, these are the television projects that most mock - and, in the end, most keep in check - the new presidential administration of Donald Trump. Therefore, if the audience is not so painfully felt temporary leave political satire in 2007, then in 2017 the issue is already becoming almost an edge.
Moreover, in 2007 David Letterman and his production Worldwide Pants were able to reach a separate settlement with the WGA and had its writers working during the strike. But that's solely because Letterman always paid his writers well above market wages and made significant concessions for the union. Letterman, meanwhile, has been retired for a long time, and other productions of evening satire do not have such agreements with screenwriters.
On the other hand, there is a category of projects that benefit from the strike of scriptwriters - this is unscripted reality. During the strike of 2007-2008, both the number of episodes and the ratings were significantly increased by non-scripted reality projects, for example, “ Big races”, “Big Brother”, game shows and news shows.
Also in 2007-2008, US television channels aired series produced by Canada or co-productions using Canadian scriptwriters. The most successful of these shows were Stargate: Atlantis, which has just entered its fourth season, and Lincoln Heights.
Another category of TV shows that screenwriters consistently keep on the “black list” due to the fact that during the strike they began to actively hire non-guild writers and foreigners is soap operas. During the 2007-2008 strike, All My Children, As the World Turns, Hospital, Living the Same Life, and The Young and the Restless, as well as the teen show Power Rangers, hired non-member writers. union, or from other countries. By the way, the South Park animated series continued shooting as planned, but its creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone never joined the Guild.
During the previous strike, it was the series of on-air channels that suffered the most. However, 10 years ago, the cable did not yet enjoy such fame (“Mad Men” was just starting its triumphal procession on the AMC channel), and there were no streaming platforms at all, except for YouTube. Shortened seasons, "spoiled" story arcs and crumpled final episodes had to make do with Bones, Criminal Minds, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Friday Night Lights, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, The Doctor House, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Law & Order, The Office, Prison Break, and The Simpsons.
The first seasons of such series suffered, and, miraculously, such future hits as "Breaking Bad" received a second season extension. "Teria big bang and Gossip Girl.
Did not enter production on time, or were delayed "until better times", because of which they lost a significant part of their budget for the first season, the series "24", "Chuck", "Battlecruiser" Galaxy "," Hannah Montana "," Private Practice" and "True Blood".
The following projects were completely closed or not put into production due to the strike of the scriptwriters: “Men in Trees”, “Life in wild environment"," Life aboard Zack and Cody "," Notes from the Slums "and" 4400 ". Many of these series have 5-13 episodes filmed but never aired.
It is the writers' strike of 2007-2008 that is blamed for the unsuccessful season and the subsequent dismissal of almost the entire group of animators and authors of the animated series Sponge Bob square pants". After the strike, by the general agreement of the fans, "Bob is no longer a cake."
Has television suffered as a result?
And how! According to a Nielsen study published on April 2, 2008, during the strike (exactly 100 days, from November 5, 2007 to February 12, 2008), terrestrial television lost from 5% to 25% of its audience. In total, 4.7% of terrestrial television viewers did not return to television viewing at all, having discovered cable television, online services and other alternative media during the strike. On average, prime ratings in the US fell 6.8%.
Direct damage from the strike of screenwriters for on-air TV channels during the strike is estimated at around $1 billion, indirect damage - another $1.5 or even $2 billion. At the same time, during the 100 days of the strike, the scriptwriters lost only $340 million in fees.
Has cinema suffered?
More than 200 actors and directors joined the writers' strike, and dozens more publicly supported the pickets and supported the strike financially, including Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin, Angelina Jolie, Eva Longoria, James McAvoy, Joaquin Phoenix, Kristen Bell, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Redford, Tom Hanks and Viggo Mortensen. By the way, the strike was publicly supported by the hosts of evening shows on television who were directly affected by it - in a joint statement, David Letterman, John Stewart, Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, Howard Stern and Ellen DeGeneres joined the picket.
Writer Ray Bradbury also supported the strike, and several literary agents and one major publishing house teamed up to create a special fund, through which they bought coffee, buns and sandwiches for screenwriters picketing studios.
As for the film projects most affected by the strike, first of all it is Bond. Often referred to as the worst film of the new James Bond series, Quantum of Solace was filmed without writers on set. Daniel Craig said in an interview that he had to "improvise or even write lines for himself and his interlocutors in half the scenes", and accepted responsibility for criticizing the film's script. "I'm not a writer and I can't write," he confirmed after the film premiered in 2008.
Origins of the X-Men: Wolverine, the first film in the ill-fated superhero trilogy, was, according to an LA Times report, "rewritten on-set by the studio." The movie is so bad it nearly killed the entire X-Men franchise for Fox.
As Jay Jay Abrams later said, "Star Trek" had to be shot according to the second draft of the script, and the director could not make changes to it.
In addition, Michael Bay for a long time attributed the critics' dissatisfaction with the Transformers sequel to the scriptwriters' strike - they say, "Revenge of the Fallen" had to be filmed almost without a script in order to meet the filming schedule. However, as the practice of the following films showed, with the screenwriter on the set, the films from the Transformers series did not become better, just as they did not become more popular with critics. Well, Michael Bay found his fans, and each of his films collected his rather big box office, so the director has nothing to complain about.
How will the writers' strike affect the industry this time around?
According to Deadline, the union is still missing about $400,000 in backlogs from the previous strike. Individual screenwriters who held key negotiating positions during the previous strike still have not received compensation from the studios - one of them still owes more than $30,000, six more than $20,000, and seven more more than $10,000 in compensation. About 10 authors said goodbye to screenwriting forever, because after the strike they could not find a job in their specialty on television, about 40 more retrained as authors for alternative platforms and write exclusively for cable and streaming services.
However, this year the studios are not the main culprits of the strike: the scriptwriters intend to fight the telecom industry (which mainly owns cable broadcasters) and the Internet giants. These platforms, unlike over-the-air TV, do not have a news or reality airbag, and their subscribers choose monthly whether to pay for the service or opt out if they don't like the content. That is why, according to experts, under such conditions, the strike is unlikely to last for 100 days, and the issue is likely to be resolved much sooner.
Well, for my part, I promise to keep a close eye on the situation.
Photo - film.ru , FOX, Paramount, Disney, Sony, Lionsgate
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Soon, fans of late-night TV talk shows in the US, and following them, Americans who prefer series, may lose the opportunity to spend an evening watching TV. On November 5, US screenwriters began a strike that could cause billions in losses to studios and disrupt the program grid of the largest US television companies.
On November 4, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) East chapter broke off negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers regarding the terms of paying screenwriters a percentage of studio income, and officially announced that The writers went on strike. The Guild's website called for its members to picket Rockfeller Center in New York, where the headquarters of one of the largest American broadcasting companies, NBC, is located. Members of the western branch of the Guild intend to picket all the major film and television studios in Hollywood.
The Screenwriters Guild, which represents the interests of 12,000 writers, began negotiations with producers in the summer of 2007. When it became clear that the producers were not going to give in, the Guild organized a vote in which its members had to approve the union's proposal to go on strike. As a result, the Guild received the support of the majority of its members, who were in favor of starting a strike at any time after October 31st.
The three-year contract between writers and producers expired on November 1st. This agreement regulates the procedure for deductions by film studios of money to screenwriters. Its signing is always accompanied by lengthy negotiations on controversial issues. In 2007, the main discussion revolved around royalties to screenwriters from the sale of television series and films on DVD and via the Internet. The Guild insisted on increasing these payments. The parties deliberated until November 4, but failed to find a compromise.
The price of the issue is billions of dollars. Analysts estimate that US consumers will spend $16.4 billion on DVDs in 2007, of which screenwriters, under the old contract, are entitled to only three percent. The guild believes that this percentage is too small, but still decided to give in on this issue to the producers. The second controversial point is much more modest, but it was because of it that the negotiations were disrupted.
Internet sales of movies in 2007 could bring studios only $158 million, TV series $194 million. But in the coming years, sales will increase significantly, so the Writers Guild is determined to achieve the inclusion of these payments in the contract in any way. Producers also believe that it is too early to discuss the amount of payments to screenwriters from online sales due to the underdevelopment of the market.
Hope that the writers will compromise, is not necessary. In 1984, the writers' union agreed to include a small percentage of royalties on home video sales in contracts due to producers' claims that the market was underdeveloped. Since then, they have repeatedly regretted their decision and for more than 20 years have tried to increase this percentage.
The Writers Guild had prepared well for the fight, hiring negotiators with extensive union experience, and strategizing with consulting companies. As a result, the writers gave the studios much tougher terms under the new contract than the producers had hoped for.
As a result, negotiations stalled. Even the intervention of representatives of the US authorities, who acted as intermediaries, did not help. The last time the state intervened in the relations between screenwriters and film studio producers was in 1988, when the screenwriters' strike lasted more than 22 weeks. Worst of all for the studios, a Writers Guild strike could be joined by the US Actors and Directors Guilds, which usually support each other during disagreements with producers.
The 2007 strike has been made mandatory for all members of the Writers Guild, and drafts that playwrights have been working on must be deposited with union representatives. Scriptwriters, according to the rules of the strike, undertake not to write new dialogues and not to make changes to already written scripts.
The production of daily television series and talk shows, the scripts for which are written every day, will suffer the most from the strike. The studios filmed enough weekly programs to last without writers until February 2008.
In fact, the studios were trying to prepare for a possible breakdown in negotiations. Actors and technicians were forced to work for movie sets in order to finish as many episodes of talk shows and series as possible before the strike, and screenwriters in a hurry to finish the scripts of films planned by the studios for release in 2008-2009.
A strike in 1988 disrupted the start of the fall television season, costing the industry $500 million. Now the scriptwriters' demarche, according to the most conservative estimates, could cost the studios already a billion dollars. How long the confrontation will last this time is unknown.
So, there was no new strike of screenwriters, and Hollywood safely returned to its business. It would seem that there is nothing to discuss the missing event - you never know what and where did not happen. But the very threat of a strike is an important indicator of how the entertainment industry has changed in last years. Today we will try to figure out the reasons for the failed strike, the factors that allowed the screenwriters to win without a fight, and the possible consequences for the industry if the authors of films and TV shows really went on strike.
What they didn't like
In April 2017, the Writers Guild almost in full force(96%) announced their readiness to start a new strike. The 20,000 people whose collective brains created most of the productions shown today on US TV, in theaters, and via pay-per-view Internet services have prepared to take up protest banners. The time was not chosen by chance: the contracts that set the rules of the game between the largest film studios and American professional guilds are usually concluded for three years, and this May, the moment came when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) was supposed to Once again strike hands with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing the interests of entertainment industry giants (Comcast Corp., Walt Disney Co., CBS Corp., Viacom Inc., Time Warner Inc. and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc.).
The scriptwriters would like to renew the contract on new terms, more favorable for themselves. In fact, they want it every time the old contract expires, but they don't always have the courage to announce it. Everyone understands that organizing a strike is not an easy task, hitting the pocket (after all, while you are on strike, you do not earn money), lasting an indefinite amount of time and, moreover, not guaranteeing victory. To get involved in a strike, it is necessary that things in the profession go completely unimportant. And in 2017, it seems that such a situation has ripened. But, unlike past performances of the guild, now their main dissatisfaction was not with film studios, but with online services.
Actually, every time the writers go on strike, it means they don't want to be left out. technical progress. In 1960, the Screenwriters Guild demanded that authors pay a percentage of showings of their films on TV, in 1973 - from showing on cable channels, in 1988 - from sales of video cassettes, in 2007 - from DVD distribution and Internet rental . After all, if the studios repeatedly cash in on content, then why should the writers of this content suck their paws?
In 2017, the writers decided to show everyone how much cable channels and streaming platforms have made a leap over the past few years. Today, these platforms are actively luring viewers from cinemas and on-air TV, producing high-quality and diverse serial content, and all this would be nice if new series were not made according to new scheme. Unlike broadcast TV networks, which pack their shows into about 22-23 episodes each season, streaming sites like Netflix and Amazon make seasons much shorter - an 8-10-13-episode season is the standard here.
There is an understandable reason for this: in order to compete with TV, new players are trying to make their shows more cinematic, spending not two, but 3-4 weeks on shooting each episode - of course, it turns out to be impossible to produce 22 episodes a year in this scenario. The overall quality of products, of course, is growing at the same time. On practice new standard means less yearly work for the screenwriter hired on the project (and less money, since royalties are paid not by week, but by series). Worse, since work contracts often forbid authors from working on multiple projects at the same time, it turns out to be impossible to cheat on the side. This has already led to the fact that the earnings of screenwriters composing "short seasons" have fallen by an average of a quarter, while the incomes of online content producers are only growing. With an explosive record growth the number of scripted shows (last year there were as many as 455 such series in the US), the authors felt that their wallets were only getting thinner from season to season.
Not surprisingly, the members of the WGA considered this situation unfair and demanded to compensate for the imbalance by equalizing the fees on 10-episode projects with the general salaries of the profession: in their opinion, it should not matter for which platform you compose, because in any of the cases the author works with full devotion. If, in addition, we take into account that not only more episodes are filmed on terrestrial TV channels, but also the minimum salary for scriptwriters is almost twice as high as on cable or streaming, then the stratification among fellow professionals turns out to be completely outrageous.
To all other digital technologies today they do not allow tracking "replays" (or rather, they do, but the owners of streaming platforms hide the data on the number of views), which have great importance on TV. Previously, for each TV show of a film or series, the author was entitled to some kind of penny, and it was not difficult to calculate the size of such payments. How to calculate royalties on the Internet, in the absence of transparent reporting - that's another question ...
A formal reason was needed for the strike, and the Screenwriters Guild of America found it - put forward "ultimatum, very expensive and impossible demands" at the negotiations, which, of course, no one was going to satisfy. This gave rise to the announcement of the inability of employers to negotiate and to uncover the banners. The calculation was clear to everyone: in order to stop the strike and return everyone to their jobs, employers must come up with their proposals, which, of course, will be worse than the conditions demanded, but still better than that what was before. For the strikers, any such concession is a victory, and they already know that the less you demand, the less you get in the end. Hence the "very expensive" initial requirements, leaving room for bargaining.
Among their other demands were also an increase in contributions to the pension fund, an annual increase in fees by 3%, an increase in the minimum medical insurance by 1.5% (so far the studios have not increased, only reduced funding) and the possibility of receiving parental leave without losing workplace.
How it was done before
To understand what a Hollywood-style strike could lead to, it is enough to recall how the previous one ended. The first and so far the only strike of the Writers Guild in this millennium, which started on November 5, 2007, broke out for a standard reason for such strikes - due to insufficient royalties. The writers wanted a percentage of DVD sales and Internet rentals, as well as other high-tech distribution tools like downloading movies to mobile phones. The strike was well-organized: 12,000 angry screenwriters, "We're on strike!" posters, picketing of major studios, "changing of the guard" every four hours.
Hollywood still remembered the strike of 1988: although at that time the screenwriters, who demanded percentage payments from sales of videotapes, achieved almost nothing, the strike still hit the industry hard on the pocket. Studios had to shoot many of their films from unfinished scripts, and on TV the strike disrupted broadcast plans scheduled for months ahead. Continuations of a number of series were released months later (the famous “Moonlight Detective Agency”, which fell in the rating due to a long downtime, was completely closed). The quality of late-night TV shows has gone downhill, and soap operas have become godlessly dumb and their stories have stopped moving. All of this contributed in no small measure to a 10% loss of audiences to cable channels, a blow from which mainstream TV is believed to have never recovered. This is not counting half a billion dollars of lost profits by television people.
In 2007, things didn't go any better. If film studios prepared for the war in advance and, just in case, bought up in advance all the scripts that they managed to reach, then TV channels operating in multi-episode formats could not make a large reserve - this meant a greatly reduced television season, and on some reality shows, where the screenwriter almost needed, won't last long.
Taking into account the fact that there were no steam platforms at that time, and the cable had no influence today, the crisis hit first of all on terrestrial TV. Evening shows, left without full-time joke writers, showed their TV presenters as "naked kings" (and not at all "witty from God", as many considered them) and lost a significant part of the audience. Due to the departure of the scriptwriters "in failure", many series received cut-down seasons with scanty story arcs (including Friday Night Lights, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, The Office, Law & Order, House Doctor, Lost, How I Met Your Mother, Bones and many others). The opening seasons of The Big Bang Theory and Breaking Bad almost became the last due to the crisis (however, Breaking Bad only benefited from this, since the suddenly cut off season finale saved one of the main characters from being cut out, in developed into a powerful character in the following years). The release of some series was shifted by a year, others were completely canceled, and already filmed episodes were shelved.
The film industry was also hit by a strike: everyone remembers how weak the X-Men: The Beginning turned out to be. Wolverine", Bond's "Quantum of Solace", "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"... These and other tapes, despite the high budgets that became a disappointment for the audience, were filmed according to draft scripts, and there were no authors on the set who could quickly correct the wagging plot . The authors rested: the guild forbade them to respond to any cries for help.
The strike lasted 100 days before the writers achieved the desired increase in royalties to 2% for showing, buying or downloading each of their films. According to conservative estimates, the demarche of the guild cost Los Angeles $ 2 billion. During this time, a number of ceremonies were canceled big prizes(the failure of the Golden Globes, boycotted by many movie stars, alone cost $60 million), about 60 television programs closed. The weekly audience of TV channels decreased by 21%, and some American channels lost up to half of their audience. 5% of viewers stopped watching TV altogether, having successfully switched to alternative media.
Some screenwriters, we note, also suffered: not only did they not earn anything during the strike, but then they could not find work for a long time, as a result of which they left the profession. Other authors, faced with the same problem, were forced to switch to cable channels and streaming platforms (with which they had a serious conversation by 2017). Television, too, has learned a lesson from the strike: since 2008, channels have been flooded with "scriptless" TV shows that don't require the ability to put letters into words.
What could happen this time
It would have happened about the same as in previous times, only with a noticeably increased magnitude. The scriptwriters may have aimed primarily at streaming platforms, but the strike is a total phenomenon: it would shake up all related industries, including television, cinema and advertising production. After all, if the screenwriter is in the guild, then during the strike he has no right to work anywhere, even if they promise big money for it. As a result, the viewer would again be faced with unsuccessfully joking TV presenters, and in the longer term - with cut seasons of high-rated (including "The Walking Dead" and "Game of Thrones") and debut television series, the closure of some television shows, "baked" Hollywood blockbusters ...
On the other hand, on the field of the so-called. scriptless reality shows would have exploded, because losing one side is always a new opportunity for competitors who would not fail to take advantage of them. Producers of Canadian TV series would also have their own gesheft English language who are not obliged to reckon with the demands of the US guilds: the strike of 2007-2008. allowed some shows of this series to break into the American market, and now, a decade later, Canada would hardly refuse a new chance.
Redistribution of viewers between existing series would also be inevitable, because when favorite show turns into crap, a capricious consumer is not inclined to endure it. Sooner or later, he starts clicking the remote control in search of something better - and an alternative is sure to be found, since the choice of serial entertainment today is wider than ever.
What did the parties eventually agree on?
At the very last moment- in fact, on the day the alleged strike began, a few minutes after the expiration of the previous contract - the bosses of the industry, with a sigh, agreed to conclude a peace settlement with the rebels (which was a great relief for both parties). Former head of the WGA Patrick Verron, who participated in the negotiations, described the new agreement of the parties as "a good deal." The strike was canceled, everyone continued to go to work, and the protest posters remained gathering dust in the closets until better times.
Although at the time of the announcement of the verdict, undercover trading with representatives of the studios was still ongoing, all members of the guild interviewed by journalists were satisfied with the “preliminary agreement”: the Alliance of Film and Television Producers satisfied their requirements in an acceptable form. Namely, the scriptwriters of the series will receive from streaming resources in the form of remuneration a certain fixed amount in the first two years and 2% of the profit from sales in the third year. Deductions from TV shows, in turn, will grow by 15%. On projects where work on each episode requires the involvement of the author for more than 2.5 weeks, scriptwriters are now entitled to an additional payment. Medicare has reportedly strengthened "for years to come". A number of other issues still have to be settled, but on the whole the conflict can be considered settled, and, apparently, there is no threat of a new strike of screenwriters in the industry in the coming years.
Why the threat of inaction worked
The guild threat worked for three reasons. First, every major studio in the US has signed a contract with the WGA and, accordingly, is now obliged to deal only with their screenwriters. Neither a film, nor a serial pilot, nor a single line for a TV show can be written by an outsider, otherwise the guild will roll out a fine and forever prohibit its authors from dealing with such a studio. You can, of course, hire students to work for food... But if you want to work with good screenwriters (and this is what all content producers want - at least in words), you need to respect the rules set by their "roof". Quarreling with the guild is an unprofitable occupation and fraught with a bunch of problems in the future; Serious people don't do things like that.
The second reason - unchanged for all Hollywood strikes - is that the demands of the writers, whatever one may say, were completely justified. The development of the entertainment industry has entered a phase that can be called "the era of quality series and new ways of distributing content", and the need to resolve the related financial issues is really ripe.
The third reason follows from the second: screenwriters, not feeling professionally and socially protected, would lose much less in the event of a strike than their employers (it is clear that a person who really has something to lose cannot be forced to strike). For comparison: if the 2007 strike brought the industry two billion direct and indirect losses, as well as a bunch of problems that came back to haunt the following years, then the strike took away only $340 million in lost fees from the scriptwriters in 100 days.
This time, the strength of their inaction has grown - if the scriptwriters had refused to work, the damage would not have been limited to two billion.
Experience shows that as a result of the last strike, first of all serial production did not go well - and this happened 10 years ago, when the modern “serial renaissance”, which the specialized media loves to talk about, was at the very beginning of its heyday. Today, when manufacturers entertainment content, and international viewers are addicted to American series more than ever, the consequences of such a strike would be much more severe. The same set - a drop in product quality, a collapse in ratings, unconcluded advertising contracts, disrupted work schedules and lost wages, a new hole in the California budget - in 2017 would have been exacerbated by the dissatisfaction of overseas consumers in many countries, for whom watching new episodes of some Somehow "The Walkers" has lately become the same habit as Pushkin's Silvio - a glass of vodka at dinner.
There are a lot of serials, they are crowding out traditional cinema, pulling the blanket over themselves and beating bread from traditional cinema. Most of the good storytellers are already working there, it was with their brains that the notorious renaissance was created, and if you replace them with "cheap labor" from somewhere in the UK, then it is quite possible that the "serial miracle" will collapse as quickly as it blossomed (not to mention that companies that hire "guest workers" bypassing the guild will be blacklisted by the guild, and WGA members will start bypassing their offices by the tenth road). new reality makes its own adjustments: today's strike is no longer equal to yesterday's, because if it has already become that "serials are the new cinema", then the industry now depends on the writers of these series much more than before. And whether content producers want it or not, the pie will now have to be cut in a new way.
At the same time, few doubt that it was the memories of the last strike that played a decisive role here: in the eyes of the industry, the 2007 strike became an eloquent example of the possible consequences of production downtime. And if there were no such example, it is still unknown how everything would turn out.
Of course, if the writers go on strike and get their way, it's only good for the writers themselves. Representatives of other specialties - primarily technical workers - simply sit for some time without work, and no one raises their salaries in the end. For example, the last strike left nearly 38,000 people idle. (What pitfalls the failed strike will result in for the scriptwriters themselves is not yet clear, but it is possible that the increased costs of content production will lead to a decrease in the number of ordered series - i.e. in the future it will become more difficult for a scriptwriter to find a job than now. But the authors, Apparently, they are ready to put up with such risks.)
Not everyone likes writers. On Internet forums where the impending strike was discussed, one can see user comments in the spirit of: “they have bred”, “they are pumping rights”, “they are preventing people from working”. In part, this criticism is true: they have bred, and pump, and interfere. On the other hand, any film or TV show begins with a script, and good scripts on an empty stomach is problematic, and if the industry forgets about it, then lively feathers are always ready to remind it. Not now, but in 3 years (or 6, or 9, or 12) they can again knock the boot on the pulpit - and as long as professional guilds exist, the studios are forced to bear this in mind.
Time will pass, and the rules of the game will change again? Well, if necessary - "we can repeat."
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