As a Hollywood writer strike continues, Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things is the latest show to halt production, joining the likes of plenty others—including Abbott Elementary, Yellowjackets and Big Mouth—which have all paused writing.
Members of the Writers Guild of America hold signs outside of the Peacock NewFront on Tuesday. ... [+]
The Writers Guild of America—the union that represents more than 11,000 film and television writers—is on strike as of Tuesday after contract negotiations with Hollywood studios failed.
Netflix’s Stranger Things, one of the streaming platform’s most-watched original series, has paused filming for its upcoming fifth and final season: The Stranger Things writers’ room Twitter account, which has more than 1.7 million followers, tweeted that filming amid the strike is impossible because “writing does not stop when filming begins.”
Sunday’s MTV Movie & TV Awards largely relied on pre-taped segments and acceptance speeches—including one from Jennifer Coolidge, who voiced her support for writers—after Drew Barrymore dropped out of hosting the event in solidarity with writers.
With just days of filming left, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will continue production but without writer-producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay on set, as they are barred from making creative decisions or any other writing-based duties per strike rules.
Late-night shows which air daily episodes were the first to stall: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Daily Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! will begin airing reruns Tuesday, since new episodes are often written the day the show airs, Deadline reported.
Weekly late-night shows Real Time with Bill Maher and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver will also shut down, Deadline reported.
Late-night Fox News show Gutfeld! will reportedly continue airing new episodes as its writers are not union members.
Soap operas are expected to be hit next and could run out of already written episodes after about a month.
Scripted shows set to air new seasons in the coming months could also be impacted: Abbott Elementary, Yellowjackets, Night Court and Cobra Kai have all paused writing for their forthcoming seasons.
Animated series Big Mouth has paused writing: It was reportedly six weeks into writing its eighth and final season and was expected to finish in August barring a strike.
Saturday Night Live will air reruns until further notice—former SNL cast member Pete Davidson was set to host the May 6 show, and Jennifer Coolidge and Kieran Culkin were slated to host the season’s final episodes.
The Talk, a daytime talk show that staffs WGA writers, will stop production and air previously unaired original episodes, after which it will air reruns.
Other daytime talk shows—The View, Live with Kelly and Mark and Tamron Hall—won’t be affected because they are largely unscripted or employ non-guild writers, and The Drew Barrymore Show has already wrapped production on its season.
Abbott Elementary writer Brittani Nichols spoke in favor of the strike on Democracy Now! on Tuesday, stating: “If this strike goes on for a significant period of time, our show will not come out on time. And that could change the amount of episodes, which people, I’m sure, will be very upset about. It could change the air date. It could change a lot of different things.”
Not all shows with forthcoming seasons will be delayed: Andor, a Star Wars franchise series, reportedly finished writing its second season before the strike with just days to spare, as did HBO’s hit House of the Dragon. The upcoming second season of Prime Video series Good Omens is completed and won’t be affected, writer Neil Gaiman tweeted.
Streaming is at the center of the negotiation stalemate: The WGA says writer pay has decreased as studios have poured money into streaming content, particularly because streaming shows tend to have fewer episodes, often 8 to 12 per season compared to the more than 20 that was once typical. Writers also say residual payments from a streaming service pale in comparison to the money they’d earn from reruns on broadcast television channels, in part because streaming residuals are fixed, not based on viewership, and original streaming content typically stays exclusive to that streamer and doesn’t get licensed to other networks, sold to overseas markets or put on DVD. The WGA has demanded viewership-based residuals for streaming content to reward writers whose content has been widely viewed, but the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios in the negotiation process, rejected this proposal. The WGA estimates the median weekly writer-producer pay has declined 23% over the last decade, adjusted for inflation, making it difficult for writers to earn a living. WGA members are also fighting against “mini-rooms,” a system where studios will hire a small number of writers to write for a not-yet-greenlit show, jobs the WGA says are underpaid and can last for as little as 10 weeks. To stop this practice, which writers say demands more work from fewer people over a smaller period of time, WGA has proposed setting minimums for the number of writers in a writers’ room and the duration of the writers’ room. The AMPTP said it has offered “generous increases in compensation for writers,” though the WGA has rejected these claims as “wholly insufficient given the existential crisis writers are facing.” Negotiations persisted for months, and in April, 98% of the Writers Guild voted to authorize a strike, which went into effect Monday night when the 2020 WGA contract expired.
The Met Gala, one of Hollywood’s biggest nights for fashion, took place in New York just hours before the WGA strike commenced. Many of the stars on the red carpet voiced their support for writers, including Quinta Brunson, who stars in and writes Abbott Elementary. Actress Amanda Seyfried went viral on Twitter for sharing her thoughts on the strike: “Everybody needs to be compensated for their work. It’s f-cking easy.” Jimmy Fallon, a WGA member, said he hoped a strike would be avoided, but he supports his writers without whom he “wouldn’t have a show.”
- That’s how many days the last WGA strike lasted, stretching from November 2007 to February 2008. Saturday Night Live didn’t air any new episodes throughout the strike and laid off employees, while late-night talk shows went on lengthy hiatuses. Some late-night hosts eventually returned to air and paid their writers out of their own pockets, including Conan O’Brien, who tried tactics like seeing how long he could spin his wedding ring on his desk to fill airtime. The strike boosted unscripted shows like Big Brother and Donald Trump’s The Apprentice, while other scripted shows like Ugly Betty and Breaking Bad were cut short. Some film scripts were rushed in advance of the strike, forcing poor-quality scripts into production and resulting in, many have speculated, negative reviews for films like Quantum of Solace, a James Bond film starring Daniel Craig, and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Hollywood’s writers are on strike. Here’s why that matters. (Vox)
Seth Meyers, Melanie Lynskey, and More Support WGA Amid Strike-Authorization Vote (Vulture)