This Copy Of Final Draft Kills Fascists
Richardthinks asks for my opinion of the WGA strike, specifically whether it will improve the status of writers...
At best, even if the writers sort of prevail, they’ll only have turned a massive rollback into a smaller one. The big media conglomerates are trying to use the inevitable switch to new delivery systems, particularly the Internet, to radically cut back on residuals, especially for television. Creators of all stripes will come out of the shift worse for wear-the question up for grabs is how much worse. The DGA deal on which new writer’s talks will be based seems to make some important concessions, but still heavily favors the Foxes and Sonys over the talent.
Until now, the studios have bargained in obvious bad faith. One of the things they agreed to give the DGA-that residuals be based on producer’s gross rather than distributor’s gross-was a demand that they insisted the WGA drop as a precondition to further talks! The timing of the DGA deal is also telling-mere days after the studios gained the right, under a force majeure clause, to cancel large numbers of now-unwanted development deals. Studio negotiators meant all along for the strike to go this long without measurable progress. All while such rail-riding, folk-song singing spokesmen for the proletariat as Wall Street analysts and Forbes Magazine observed that the writer’s demands were perfectly reasonable.
The studios have had the upper hand until now but their brinkmanship has started to turn the timetable in favor of the writers. The upcoming Oscars are a big psychological breakpoint for the studios, but the development period for the next TV season is coming, which is more of a dollar issue. Still I don’t expect the writers to wiggle huge improvements over the DGA package out of them.
Best case scenario: less worse.