The Writers Guild of America is assembling on the picket lines. On day three of the first Hollywood writers’ strike in 15 years, Adam Ruins Everything and The G Word creator Adam Conover was spotted picketing with WGA members near Hollywood Boulevard on Thursday. According to since-deleted tweets from Alex Blagg, a writer-producer whose credits include episodes of @midnight and Workaholics, the line of picketers “[shut] down a Marvel location shoot in Hollywood” with chants of “hey hey, ho ho, this corporate greed has got to go.” While unidentified, the production is likely the upcoming Disney+ series Wonder Man, which is set in Los Angeles and has been filming in the area since April.
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Deadline also reported that Conover and Blagg “helped shut down a Marvel location shoot on N. Las Palmas Avenue” Thursday.
On Tuesday, the WGA voted to strike after failing to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers that represents major movie studios, including Disney, the parent company of Marvel Studios.
“Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal — and though your strike vote gave us the leverage to make some gains — the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” the WGA said in a statement on May 1st. “We must now exert the maximum leverage possible to get a fair contract by withholding our labor.”
The statement continued: “The WGA Negotiating Committee began this process intent on making a fair deal, but the studios’ responses have been wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing. The companies’ behavior has created a gig economy inside a union workforce, and their immovable stance in this negotiation has betrayed a commitment to further devaluing the profession of writing. From their refusal to guarantee any level of weekly employment in episodic television, to the creation of a ‘day rate’ in comedy variety, to their stonewalling on free work for screenwriters and on AI for all writers, they have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.”
Put plainly: guild members — which means most writers in Hollywood — are prohibited from crossing the picket lines to write for the duration of the strike. Productions that are already underway, like Wonder Man, can continue, but without last-minute rewrites, additional lines of dialogue, or other touch-ups that typically happen during production.
Destin Daniel Cretton (Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the upcoming Avengers: The Kang Dynasty) is a director and executive producer on the series, which has tapped Andrew Guest (Hawkeye, 30 Rock) as head writer. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Aquaman, Candyman) will play the eponymous Simon Williams, who in the Marvel comics is an ionic-powered superhero and Hollywood actor/stuntman who has served as a member of the Avengers.
Marvel Studios’ Wonder Man will stream on Disney+. A release date is TBA.
