The Writers Strike Is Over. Can We All Be Friends Again?

On Sunday night, the WGA and the AMPTP reached a tentative deal on a new three-year contract, paving the way for the end of the strike after 146 days, the second longest ever. Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss what happens now, including what needs to happen for this deal to be finalized; where they landed on key issues like minimum staffing protections against AI, performance-based residuals, and pay increases; what this means for the SAG-AFTRA strike; and whether everyone can be friends again now that a deal has been made.

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In the following excerpt, Belloni and Lucas Shaw discuss the impact the strike will have on the relationship between screenwriters and studios going forward.

Matt Belloni: All right. So let’s get to the question that I asked in my newsletter last night. Can we all be friends now? And that’s a more complicated issue, I think now, than it has been in previous strikes. A couple of reasons for that. First of all, the tenor of this strike was so nasty. I mean, I remember being around in 2008, 2009, 2007. It was not this way.

I mean, yes, there was the rhetoric and there were people issuing statements and posting blog posts and things like that, but there were not the nonstop villainization of the CEOs on social media. The social media element caused this to get ratcheted up five, 10 notches. And I don’t know that this just goes away. Do you think that now if this is all resolved, everybody’s friends again, they turned off the pressure, that the studios are going to be like, “Oh, OK. It was fine that you called me a villainous robber baron asshole for five months. We’re just going to work with you now, and it’s going to be cool.”

Lucas Shaw: I’m skeptical that there’s going to be this lasting impact on the relationship. Maybe I’m just—

Belloni: You think amnesia. Everyone’s like, “We’re back.”

Shaw: Yeah. I mean, look, I’m sure you’ve gotten these messages too about all the executives are following what people are saying on Twitter and they’ll remember—

Belloni: Oh, they definitely are. Are you kidding? Who wouldn’t?

Shaw: Yeah. No, I’m sure they are.

Belloni: David Zaslav, who was the memes of him and the sunglasses of the commencement speech. He’s looking at those.

Shaw: I’m sure that they paid attention to it. And I’m sure that if there is a moment, if you’ve got a bubble show, and there’s a screenwriter that was really nasty and outspoken, maybe it hurts their chances. Maybe.

Belloni: Now, I’m not talking about the powerful people. Ultimately, these executives need to be in business with the top creators. I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about the middle class and sort of up-and-coming or maybe a little has-been writer who spent the entire strike on Twitter trashing the executives. There’s this guy that was a writer on The Bear, this guy Alex O’Keefe, who literally was getting in fights with Bob Iger. It was a one-sided fight. I don’t think Iger directly responded.

Shaw: He was just yelling at Bob Iger on Twitter.

Belloni: Yeah, but yelling at Bob Iger for five months on Twitter. That’s not great for your long-term career prospects.

Shaw: Yeah, I hear you, but Bob Iger is not getting involved in …

Belloni: He isn’t.

Shaw: ... the staffing of individual shows.

Belloni: Maybe that endears you to the showrunner of The Bear that will hire you forever or the other showrunners that were cheering you on when you were trashing Bob Iger.

Shaw: The other thing to keep in mind is if you have a good idea, people are going to want to buy it, so …

Belloni: That is true.

Shaw: ... success heals all.

Belloni: You know how this works. There’s a lot of great writers and the people who get staffed typically have some kind of relationship, or they have an in or they wrote something that appeals to the particular showrunner. This whole noise around the strike could be a factor. And let’s also keep in mind the market has changed in these five months, even before the strike started, in May. The bubble had burst on Peak TV and a big correction was coming.

But now, five months later, when all these companies are reeling and trying to fix their stock price and spend less and increase profitability, we’re headed for a big market correction in the amount of content that’s produced. So that is ultimately going to translate into jobs that are lost.

Shaw: Yeah, and I got into this a little bit in my newsletter where I’ve heard a lot from executives and representatives and even some writers who recognize that some of the gains that the writers received could actually hurt them or hurt certain people, I should say, in the long run because to your point, studios are cutting back. All of these different things they get in their contract make shows more expensive. It will further suppress the amount of product that gets made.

Belloni: And ultimately it’ll mean a smaller number of people making more money, but the overall divvying up of the pie will go to fewer people.

Shaw: Yes, there will be fewer slices if you want to continue the metaphor. But look, there are always peaks and valleys in production, and you have a lot of smart people who are convinced that the correction is not going to be quite as severe as people say, and one of the other things that could happen is there could be a very vibrant market for what’s called a spec script or something that’s written without any deal that just gets sold. And if you have something that people really like, there can still be a bidding war, and it can still work for people and there will still be opportunities. Right? That’s the funky thing about working in Hollywood, is that it’s not a place where you come for stability.

Belloni: True. I know. This whole conversation around the middle-class writer in a steady job, it’s never been that. I mean, it’s hard. It’s hard to do this for a living. And yes, the hurdles are harder these days when the shows are six episodes and you have to put together three jobs in a year to make what you could have made on a 22-episode sitcom. But it’s always been hard.

This excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity.

Host: Matt Belloni
Guest: Lucas Shaw
Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez
Theme Song: Devon Renaldo

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