Could there be a ray of light in the labor dispute paralyzing Hollywood? For the first time in three months, representatives of the screenwriters' union and studio delegates met on Friday, August 4 in Los Angeles, California.

Nothing came of the meeting. According to the Writers Guild of America (WGA), contact was reestablished by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a group representing the major studios and streaming platforms – Disney, Warner Bros, NBC-Universal, Sony, Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

The parties had not met since the start of the writers' strike on May 2. Actors joined the movement on July 14, in a double strike not seen since 1960. Their union, SAG-AFTRA, was not involved in Friday's meeting, however. According to the Los Angeles Times, the industry believes that the actors are still too radical in their demands.

The strike may be dragging on, but there has been no rapprochement in the positions of either side. While the screenwriters' union met with industry delegates, several hundred demonstrators blocked the entrances to Universal Studios in Burbank, north of Los Angeles.

"This illustrates our members' determination to get a contract that is fair and equitable and that respects us," said actors' union negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, promising to clear the street. The strikers are demanding better compensation for streaming revenues and protection against the use of artificial intelligence (AI), fearing that their image will be used without their knowledge. AI also risks eliminating thousands of jobs by allowing extras to be replaced by animations.

"Progress has been made," said actor Billy Crystal, who was standing outside Paramount Studios. "We have to remain optimistic. All this is important. The world is changing and [studios] need to change with us."

Since July 14, celebrities have been joining the picket lines in front of studios not only in Hollywood but also in New York, in front of NBC-Universal and Amazon. In just a few weeks, Bradley Cooper, Sarah Silverman, Anna Kendrick, Rosanna Arquette, Lupita Nyong'o and Colin Farrell have all participated. On July 28, Jane Fonda protested in front of the Netflix studios and four days later, in front of the Disney studios. Stars and unknowns alike, the strikers are dressed in T-shirts bearing the colors of their unions: SAG-AFTRA, which represents 160,000 film, TV and radio actors. WGA has 11,000 members.

The bitterness hasn't abated. Unions accuse studio negotiators of spreading false rumors to divide strikers, as they did during the 2007-2008 writers' strike, which lasted a hundred days.

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