The strike means late-night shows could immediately grind to a halt, and television series and movies scheduled for release later this year and beyond may face major delays.
Thousands of Hollywood television and movie writers will go on strike Tuesday, their union said, after talks with studios and streamers over pay and other conditions ended without a deal. The strike means late-night shows could immediately grind to a halt, and television series and movies scheduled for release later this year and beyond may face major delays. Writers Guild of America (WGA) board members “acting upon the authority granted to them by their memberships, have voted unanimously to call a strike,” the organisation tweeted. Studios’ responses to its demands had been “wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing,” the writers’ union said. It came after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), representing studios including Disney and Netflix, said in a statement that negotiations “concluded without an agreement”. The last time Hollywood writers laid down their pens and keyboards, in 2007, the strike lasted for 100 days, costing the Los Angeles entertainment industry around US$2 billion. Time US adults spend on TikTok closes in on Netflix: market tracker This time, the two sides are clashing as writers demand higher pay and a greater share of profits from the boom in streaming, while studios say they must cut costs due to economic pressures. The WGA accused studios of seeking to create a “gig economy”, in which writing would be “an entirely freelance profession”.
