Hollywood Screenwriters Guild Goes On Strike, Production Of New Series, Movies and Talk Shows to be Halted Indefinitely

Hollywood Writers Go on Strike, Halting Production

The dispute, which pits 11,500 television and screenwriters against the major studios, has shattered 15 years of labor peace in the entertainment business.

www.nytimes.com

for now late night shows like “Saturday Night Live,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” are going to be the first casualties of the strike, recordings of new episodes of these shows are going to be halted very soon and also new series and movies that are currently on production are going to be delayed indefinitely or at least until the strikes ends

there are several reasons why the writers decided to go on strike but the main ones are that they refuse the use of AI tools being put to use with the intention to replace screenwriters, one of the issues with studios wanting to use AI or Chatbots to make new content is that they were trained using scripts written by the members of the Writer's Guild without the later giving their consent or being compensated, they also refuse to accept studios creating new scripts using AI and then hiring a "ghost" writer to improve the AI's work

worth mention that for now this is only going to affect American productions, content from other parts of the world aren't going to be affected unless they decide to join the strike

Quote from keyboardwarrior7

AI is one thing, they also don't get paid shit.

I follow a Screenwriter from LA on Twitter, and she has been talking a lot about how executives have been cutting the size of writing rooms to have "mini rooms", which means they hire less people to do the same amount of work with less pay.

She's also been talking about how with streaming services, their residuals have been reduced severely. Back when cable television was more prevalent, writers lived off of residuals. These days, streaming services don't pay much in residuals, television shows get cut without any warning, and streaming networks hid their numbers so that writers don't have any room to negotiate their pay.

Also, because there are less writer's rooms, that means there are less opportunities for writers, and it is hard for writers to be promoted. It's terrible. It's too the point most writers are struggling day to day financially. She and other writers have been talking about this for a long time.

AI is a part of it, but it's definitely not the main thing I've seen writers complain about.

Display More

the AI thing seems to be the one getting the most attention on the media

that does sounds pretty crappy, the fact that screenwriters are now in a more vulnerable position than 10 / 20 years ago is gross, hopefully streaming services don't get their way, that would be a loss not only for the people that work in the industry but also consumers

and honestly the Guild position seems pretty reasonable, here are the WGA proposals and the answer they got from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers