WGA Strike Action: A British Entertainment Junkie's Perspective.
With the failure of last minute talks between the Writers' Guild of America (both East and West) and the Producers and Networks on Tuesday - despite the mediation by a federally appointed neutral party - Union Writers accross the USA began to go on strike yesterday evening (US time), while Hollywood Scriptwriters desperately scrambled to complete scripts for upcoming films such as Indiana Jones 4, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Bond 22.
The reason for the walkout is the failure for Producers and the WGA to come to an agreement over pay and royalty revenue coming from both DVD (and High Definition Disc format) sales and new distribution media - such as web streaming and pay-per-download services such as iTunes of both television shows and silver screen movies. Members of the WGA Union feared that money they (quite rightly) are owed a share of would either be denied them, or substantially curtailed as a newly drafted contract, set to begin today, failed to address their concerns.
As many TV-shows and dramas are heavily reliant on writing from Union Writers, such as the now postponed/cancelled Heroes: Origins, as well as witty segments on programmes like The Colbert Report, the strike action is already taking its toll on Prime Time and Late Night TV - the most important parts of a Network's schedule. While the networks could theoretically employ non-Union writers, such people are rare as defying union action would result in expulsion from the Union, denying union level pay-rights and benefits as well as potentially causing their exclusion from further work. This is why writers were working around the clock up until the Wednesday Midnight deadline
The obvious problem is that popular new Science Fiction (a booming genre) shows, such as Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, The Bionic Woman, and other new dramas are facing a drought of filming scripts and have no one to make alterations.. At this stage it could mean that these shows have to end at mid-season cliffhangers, if they've filmed that far ahead...
Animated series may survive a little longer as scripts have to be produced as much as a year in advance due to the nature of the media. The problem is even then, rewrites can scupper the situation, and having an episode "in the can" does not mean the episode is complete, as both The Simpsons and Fututrama teams have admitted.
A prolonged strike could have far reaching implications though, especially with films that have yet to be green lit properly. The much beleaguered WB finds itself now sitting on four greenlit properties with no script and no scriptwriter to use: The Man of Steel, The Flash - Fastest Man Alive, Green Lantern and their tentpole: the Justice League., depsite just signing a new writer, is now delayed in the planning stage because of this strike.
Spider-Man 4 is also going to be slow going as they only just signed their writer on Wednesday...
As a fan of imported shows as well as film, I am worried. Even *if* We typically have to wait half a year for a new show to be imported, we'll still feel shockwaves from this, though that's mitigated by the quality of our own home-growen TV shows, such as the BBC's Robin Hood, Spooks and Doctor Who, as well as ITV shows.
American viewers should be alarmed too. If a strike lasts as long as the 1988 one, we could see the next five and a half months result in many cancelled shows and movies, and the resurgence of Reality TV, news and a BUNCH of repeats... And the thing we got out of the last one was America's Greatest Car Chases...