As Writers’ Strike Continues, Studios May Shift Focus to Ending Actors’ Strike

The Writers’ and Actors’ Strikes in Hollywood are ongoing, months after people started hitting the picket line in May. In the past week, headlines were made when the WGA (Writers Guild of America) canceled a meeting between prominent showrunners and WGA leadership, which was meant to create an agreeable proposal to present to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Apparently,  that setback has been noted by the AMPTP, and rumors have it that studios may turn their focus toward solving the actors’ strike, first and foremost. 

The Wrap reports that “Members of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are getting restless over the lack of progress in talks with the WGA.” The WGA received a proposal from the AMPTP back in late August, and the latter apparently feels that ” the onus is on the other side to come up with a fresh counteroffer.”

The strategy in shifting focus from the WGA to SAG-AFTRA is clear: studios can get back into at least some of the productions they had in the pipeline if the actors go back to work. There would be the same strict rules about what could or could not be done with scripts that were already completed (or near enough to complete), but productions could carry on. That was the case during the 2000s Writer Strike; to this day fans point to films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine as being the end result of Hollywood trying to make movies without writers properly involved. However, from the studios’ perspective, poorly written and/or barely coherent cinematic narratives are still movies that put people in seats and secure their ticket money. 

At the moment, with both the writers and actors not working, there is virtually no TV and movie content being produced. According to insiders and industry figures, Hollywood is staring at a hard deadline for when the stall in production will leave consumers with little new TV/movie content for a lengthy period of time. 

“There’s a real urge to get a deal done,” an “insider” told The Wrap. “It’s been weeks since there’s been any talks with the writers, and there’s some among the studios who don’t want to sit on their hands waiting for writers to provide another proposal and want to see if there can be progress with SAG-AFTRA instead.”

The WGA is said to be “digging in” on issues like streaming revenue, but the report also claims that “Whenever AMPTP resumes talks with SAG-AFTRA, reaching a deal likely won’t be any easier than with WGA,” due to the fact that “there are still several key sticking points between labor and management.”

We’ll keep you updated on the state of the Hollywood Strikes. You can check out the deeper breakdown over on The Wrap.