The Writers of America (WGA) strike left unprecedented chaos in Hollywood studios after a 148-day strike. The writers for television and movies already found a perfect agreement with studio bosses to put an end to their strike and start working on September 27th.
The WGA clearly demonstrated they represent the backbone of every audiovisual production as writers are an extremely important piece during the creative process. The 11,500 screenwriters who are represented by the WGA rejoice over an exceptional deal with studios that three internal boards achieved and voted unanimously to end the strike and send a tentative contract with entertainment companies to members for ratification.
The tentative contract includes residual payments for overseas viewing of streaming that would increase by 76% according to the WGA internal board. For the first time, the writers are set to receive a bonus from streaming services based on a percentage of active subscribers as a bonus to reward TV shows and movies that become streaming juggernauts.
In addition, the minimum staffing for television shows at least has to have three writer-producers that must be hired for writers’ rooms for first-season shows running 20 weeks or longer. The tentative contract also guarantees that artificial intelligence technology will not encroach on writers’ credits and compensation.
The Writers Guild encouraged members to join the actors’ picket lines this week as a symbolic show of solidarity before returning to work after the SAG-AFTRA union hasn’t reached any kind of deal. “Today is an important day to pay a debt to the actors who came out to support us early during our strike when they still had a contract.”
