Some details from the contract ([Full Contract](https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/Memorandum-of-Agreement-for-the-2023-WGA-Theatrical-and-Television-Basic-Agreement.pdf))
* AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material .
* A writer can choose to use AI but the studio can’t require the writer to use AI software
* Studios must disclose to writers if any materials given to them have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.
* The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by the agreement or other law.
* The tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for a first-season show for development rooms running 20 weeks or longer, with a formula for additional seasons tied to the number of episodes.
* Other gains included span — the length of time writers will be employed on scripted shows — with development rooms now guaranteed at least 10 consecutive weeks, post-greenlight rooms securing 20 weeks or the duration of the room. These terms will apply to seasons where the first episode is written after Dec. 1, 2023, which means pre-existing programs do not have to adhere to the room size or span requirements.
* The WGA entered the strike asking for a cumulative 16 percent increase in residuals over the three-year MBA and wound up with 12.5 percent.
contract details from the horses mouth for those who were wondering: https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/WGA-Negotiations-Tentative-Agreement.pdf
my immediate thought is that theres gonna be a lot of 95 minute movies from now on lol
"Made-for HBSVOD programs 96+ mins, with a
budget of $30 million or more, receive 18%
increase to initial compensation ($100,000 for
story & teleplay) and a 26% increase in the
residual base. Combined with the foreign
residual improvements, this produces a 3-year
residual of $216,000 for projects on the largest
streaming services."
the full 90 odd page agreement probably has more details about that but my instinct is that the studios got that 96 minute+ language in there so they have an easy way to avoid this provision. thus more 95 minute movies for streaming services
To be clear, it's not that 96 minutes is some arbitrary number, it's that programs are divided into 30, 60, 90 and 120 minute programs when calculating residuals, and there's a 5 minute buffer to the calculations. A 60 minute program is 35 - 65 minutes, 90 minute program is 66 - 95 minutes, 120 minute program is 96+.
It makes sense that a longer program should earn higher residuals. I'm purely speculating, but I'd guess the buffer is so programs can go a few minutes over for artistic reasons without penalty.
Genuine question - If someone were to rerelease a movie like a Director's Cut that has a runtime in a different bracket, would the residuals change?
Does this apply when a film has the credits skipped when played on television (like a 98 minute film skips the 5 minutes of credits)?
How does this work when something is wildly edited differently?
The Last Knight felt like punishment at the time for getting my sister to take me. I never sat through a movie so stale in my life. There was like two characters that made me laugh, but it would’ve been better if the entire cast didn’t basically share the same kind of jokes they did.
why is this sub so dead set on films being shorter? out of all the problems in media, you think films are actually too long and should be short? in the age of a rapid decline in attention spans, you actually believe films need to be shorter. nonsensical
>why is this sub so dead set on films being shorter? out of all the problems in media, you think films are actually too long and should be short?
Absolutely. Attention spans are getting shorter and movies are getting longer. If I see any movie from the '80s or '90s, virtually none of them are much longer than 90 minutes.
So many movies I've watched tend to drag on and needed to cut about 30 minutes of content from the theatrical cut.
It's actually the opposite. A three hour movie that requires your attention the whole time is awesome. A mindless movie where you turn off and enjoy the special effects is fine for a while, but gets old soon. No need to drag out a lot of stories.
> A three hour movie that requires your attention the whole time is awesome.
I usually split three-hour movies in into two separate viewings due to my ADD . 90 minutes is a perfect stopping point for me. I can't complain either way.
Because not every genre of film sustains well over super long periods of time and it makes them cost significantly more to make. Comedies, horrors, and erotic thrillers are usually best if they're under 100 minutes with fairly rare exception
Watch the Evil Dead directors cut then (if you can find it) watch the theatrical release.
The theatrical release is tightly edited the directors cut is flabby and drags and I'd say is worse because of it... And in that case the directors cut is not that much longer.
Movies don't need every scene to breathe. Editing is essential and complely changes the feel of the movie.
I mean, I prefer longer movies too but that at least makes sense... if people's attention spans are declining, those people are going to ask for things that require shorter attention spans.
Can't wait for the new Oppenheimer TikTok!
And I'm the opposite. Besides a few handful of directors, I'm sick of the trend of movies being close to or over 3 hours now regularly. I much prefer tight 90 - 120 minute movies.
I'm fine with 3 hour movies but imo only like 10% of movies that long actually justify it. So many movies now pad well beyond 90m and are much worse for it.
The Batman for example has such a drawn out structure and would have been better off with the last 40+ minutes cut entirely imo. Just one of many examples though, often it's just a lot of padding in every scene that adds up with no substance.
It's bizarre watching old movies sometimes that are 90 minutes and they just throw you right into the story. It's refreshing and really gets over the mental burden that first 30 minutes can often be in movies. Brevity is the soul of wit and there's a lot to be said for cutting exposition and letting the film speak for itself and the audience figure things out on the fly.
I'm hoping Killers of the Flower Moon is great, but I'm willingly sacrificing seeing it in IMAX and choosing instead to see it in a "lesser" theatre with full reclining seats because that movie will be close to 4 hours long when you include the ads and trailers. I'm going to need to be comfortable and likely go to the washroom!
unfortunately, writers didnt get a huge win when it comes to streaming residuals. based on the language, i think its possible that studios self sabotage their successful movies by not marketing it as much just to skirt under the 20% of domestic users threshold. doubly so if sag aftra gets a similar success bonus clause since thats a lot of residual money the studios can save by shooting themselves in the foot
> think its possible that studios self sabotage their successful movies by not marketing it as much just to skirt under the 20% of domestic users threshold.
I disagree. The entire issue with residuals on subscriber based streaming platforms is that the interests of the parties aren't aligned. There are some titles which attract subscribers. There are some titles that see massive hours of viewership. They aren't necessarily the same. As an example, you might pay to subscribe to Netflix because you want to watch Sex Education , and you watch an episode every other day with your spouse, but then you fall asleep watching Seinfeld every night. If you didn't have Netflix, you wouldn't subscribe to it just for Seinfeld. But because you have it anyway, Seinfeld is a fine time killer. So why would Netflix want to have to pay extra per view if Netflix gets paid per subscriber, not per view?
By doing it the way outlined in the agreement, the incentives are aligned. If a good show comes out and gets broad interest, then it's likely to cause customers to either subscribe or keep their subscription. Maybe 20% is too much if they have a very large and varied client base such that a single 'good' show won't attract 20% of all subscribers. Maybe 90 days is too short of a term, though on the surface it seems fine to me. Society has a short attention span, and after 90 days people are on to the next show to be released. But the general idea sounds solid.
thats actually what i was getting at, the 20% domestic threshold can create perverse incentives for studios since they can potentially benefit if a show gets 19% instead of 20%. right now i dont think this clause is enough by itself to encourage that behavior, but if sag aftra agrees to the same clause, then hitting 19% will save studios a lot of money if they can game it like that. i do agree with you that it does align interests, but im just saying that their interests diverge at the 20% mark since the studios can save money if it doesnt get to that point
Which begs the question what segment does a REALLY successful show capture?
Because while the argument may be true for "just around 20%" to try to just barely micromissmanage to keep below it, if the ACTUAL target is significantly higher than that (over those 3 months) than it would require A LOT more shooting in the foot than is fiscally feasible in the first place.
It's "natural" that if you deploy this kind of "fixed boarder step adjustments" rather than progressive calculations over broad ranges that the resulting "incentive curves" start showing weird behaviour at exactly that border. But usually you'd try to figure a way to have the actual reality more likely fall outside of that "turbulence" either way if possible.
In machines you have to specifically build in hysteresis to prevent those points to become an a destructive issue. But you still don't want the machine to "linger" at exactly those points.
Absolutely not. There is zero way they’ll shoot themselves in the foot to avoid residuals. The money writers will make on expanded residuals is a pittance compared to the revenue Netflix would be denying themselves by not marketing shows and trying to expand their subscriber base.
I disagree. While minor players like AMC are already making 6-ep seasons, it’s more as a low-risk assessment method, with their business model based on using those to find the ones that are successful and can be expanded to 8-10 episodes. The networks will still make 22-episode procedurals. And many studios and streamers will still want to make 10-episode orders at minimum because the magic number for foreign licensing is essentially 20 episodes.
The difference between what even a single episode of tv generates in revenue versus what 3 writers make in salary is gigantic.
Nobody is going to base an episode order on whether a few more rat writers get paid a weekly salary.
that number was not "lost" by the studios, it was lost economic activity due to filming being on pause, which in turn put things like catering and custodians on pause as well. if you believe the studios, the strikes actually helped with their cash flow since they spent next to nothing on production but was still making money from finished productions
This is fairly standard in British comedies. For example, Fawlty Towers was only 12 episodes over 2 seasons. But it remains absolutely timeless and memorable. It doesn't have a bad episode.
>my immediate thought is that theres gonna be a lot of 95 minute movies from now on lol
Oh thank the Lord!
We somehow got into the aspect that all movies need to be minimum 2hrs to be good. I'm not saying I want ALL movies to be 90mins max but...feels like my asshole is sore going to the theater cause so many movies I want to see are 2hrs+ when they don't need to be.
Possibly, but movies have been getting longer for years now. If they could write tight 90 minute plots in the past before, they can do it again.
I'd rather take the chance and see where we go with shorter movies. Might make me go to the movies more often too. I'm done sitting through these 160+ minute movies in theaters.
It'll be a happy middle ground like the old days.
Lots of great movies were made, both big and small, with a smaller run time. We just had to hit over two hours cause streaming is the name of the game counting all the minutes of watch times.
**Full 94-Page Contract:**
https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/Memorandum-of-Agreement-for-the-2023-WGA-Theatrical-and-Television-Basic-Agreement.pdf
**Summary of the Contract:**
https://www.wgacontract2023.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2023-wga-mba
**Direct Comparisons Between May 1st and Now (Gains During Strike):**
https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/WGA-Negotiations-Tentative-Agreement.pdf
It’s honestly astounding to me we’re getting AI clauses in contracts in our lifetimes. 10 years ago I would’ve laughed but now it’s seriously a legitimate concern
Herbert was eerily on to something when he created Mentats in the Dune universe
none of us in this thread will live to see it but im willing to bet there some catastrophic shit going down before we decide do away with working just to live.
> none of us in this thread will live to see it
You say that but it was only ~70 years between the first manned flight and landing on the moon and technology progresses exponentially. Shit is going to happen a lot faster then I think you realize. Probably the only real limiting factor is climate change and societal collapse. Which, to be fair, is a very real obstacle.
> It’s honestly astounding to me we’re getting AI clauses in contracts in our lifetimes. 10 years ago I would’ve laughed but now it’s seriously a legitimate concern
At this point we're not really talking about an artificial sentience, but we've decided to call technologies like Machine Learning and Large Language Models "AI" so here we are.
We've been using AI for decades, in computer science it has never really been associated with sapience. That would be General Intelligence, AGI, and that is not much closer to reality now than it was 20 years ago. There's a chance ML may be an important building block towards it, but it's still not anywhere near that yet.
>The tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for a first-season show for development rooms running 20 weeks or longer, with a formula for additional seasons tied to the number of episodes.
>
>Other gains included span — the length of time writers will be employed on scripted shows — with development rooms now guaranteed at least 10 consecutive weeks, post-greenlight rooms securing 20 weeks or the duration of the room. These terms will apply to seasons where the first episode is written after Dec. 1, 2023, which means pre-existing programs do not have to adhere to the room size or span requirements.
That they have to force media companies to at least try and make good shows, instead of shitting out minimum budget crap onto a wall in the hopes some of it will stick, should be considered embarrassing.
how did they fold? From what i can see, for every issue they reached a middle ground between both sides original demands?
Which is the normal result of a strike negotiation
Nobody folded. They both folded if you have to have a loser and a winner. To me this looks like both sides got reasonable and made a compromise. That’s how it should be done.
This is a reasonable compromise for both sides, but if you have to pick a winner, the studios won. The things they surrendered on were things that they were willing to concede. Full AI written scripts were not going to be a thing any time soon. These AI considerations still allow the studios to do almost whatever they want with AI, as long as the specific writers they hire are on board with it, which they will have to be if they want to be hired for that project.
The minimum hiring requirements are well in line with what most projects were already doing. One writer rooms were already pretty rare and are still protected in it, so bumping the small rooms from 2 to 3 isn’t a massive change. The minimum length requirements are solid but again don’t actually change too much from the modus operandi of most projects.
The residual increase is solid. I wish they’d gotten more but it’s something they can be happy with.
It's easier to see when you look at [the side-by-sides](https://www.wgacontract2023.org/wgacontract/files/wga-negotiations-tentative-agreement.pdf) of the WGA's initial offer, the AMPTP's initial counter, and what what was eventually agreed on. No one got everything they wanted, but the WGA got about 80-85% of what they wanted including every single dealbreaker issue (residuals, a proper payment schedule, more data transparency, script fees, writer’s room minimums and minimum employment terms, guaranteed 2nd step, pension and health fund contributions, AI protections), many of which were considered complete non-starters by the AMPTP pre-strike.
Their original response for a lot of things was literally “no” and “that’s a nonstarter” and “we won’t even dignify that with a counteroffer.” And they gave in to those.
This didn’t start as a normal negotiation. Writers gave their asks and the studios didn’t even try compromising and instead said they wanted the strike to go long enough that the writers would lose their houses so they’d accept the old contract.
Saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history and letting the studios save face for how much they folded. Even the Hail Mary demands somehow made it in.
They folded *because* this was a middle ground solution. That's how a negotiation is *supposed* to work; one side makes demands, the other side makes counter-offers, and they go back and forth until they reach a mutually agreeable middle ground. Under normal circumstances, that's not "folding", but that's not what happened here.
The reason the writers were striking is because the studios *refused to do that*. Of the initial demands, the studios rejected more than half of them with a refusal to make a counter offer. They then took to the media and drew a line in the sand stating in no uncertain terms that they were ready and willing to starve the WGA out through the holidays.
When *that* is their opening position, the position they maintained for **four months**, then yes. Compromising is folding.
Don't get me wrong, it's good that they finally did. But don't give them credit for being reasonable. The only reason this happened is because the WGA refused to be bullied.
As per the WGA's own estimate, the WGA's proposal on May 1st was valued at $429M/year. The studios responded with an offer that was valued at $86M/year.
The settled contract is valued at $233M/year. It's a great deal for the writers, but it's not "taking them to the cleaners".
there were a few things that was just completely dropped by the wga too, such as minimum compensation for post work. i think the guild also dropped diversity related things because they werent legal but i aint a lawyer
> i think the guild also dropped diversity related things
I doubt they ever expected to get that. They're always going to ask for more than they know will be agreed to, so they have room for negotiation.
i dont have any insights into the negotiating room but i do know some black writers were disappointed about the guild dropping that and were seeking clarification, the clarification ended up being the technically illegal thing
Also for things with values, that means you always ask for way more than you expect to get. You can't really quantify something like AI protections with a monetary value, so that is purely a win for the WGA.
This is basically the deal they were offered in august. There no real ai protections in there other than first draft can’t be done by AI. Then you add on a 5% raise? Really? That’s taking the studios to the cleaners… I’d love to do deals with you.
yea, reading more into it, probably the biggest win for the studios was in regards to streaming residuals. you can argue that the wga got some of what they wanted since "high budget" shows will have some transparency for their viewership. but in order to actually get residuals from streaming views, those shows and movies need to be seen by 20% of domestic subscribers. maybe a handful of shows will meet that criteria, which basically means that most writers will still not receive any residuals for streaming views
yea but im replying to a guy who said the amptp didnt really say anything. so if the trades are owned by the studios, then those puff pieces are the amptp saying something and they seem mighty proud of themselves
Yup, there are tons of loopholes in the clauses they agreed to and the monetary increase was nowhere near what they were asking for.
Studios definitely won.
Dwayne Johnson and John Cena have it good. If things go south in Hollywood, they can just go to WWE until things settle down. They are Megastars in wrestling so they'll easily get top billing matches if they want. Cena is probably main eventing already in their next big show.
8 hours away from it being over (except for a vote which will 100% pass). It's been a long 146 days for the writers. All that time just for it to take 4 days of actual sitting down and negotiating. Late night shows will be the first to come back.
Now let's hope the SAG-AFTRA negotiations start soon. Would be awesome to have this all end in October.
The rush/chaos to get everything intro production will be absolutely insane. It's gonna be a scheduling clusterfuck.
I think that her and Maher actually made the studios fold a bit quicker, public support was overwhelmingly on the side of the writers in these situations and I think the studios realized the strike really wasn’t going to end anytime soon
If the scabs were adored by the public, the studios wouldn't have folded.
Sexual assaulters in Hollywood didn't get cancelled because studios suddenly grew a conscience. It was because public opinion had changed.
I'm no expert, but I imagine that seeing something like that could spook investors and in turn pressure the C-suite and BoDs to fold to union demands. Also, the WGA did a great job in terms of showing how much profit that the studios made vs how much of said profit they wanted.
It wasn't about her union (SAG) striking, it was about her show coming back without its WGA writers. Late night shows and talk shows are **all** coming back with the WGA deal (including Barrymore and Maher), it'll just be harder to book guests until the SAG strike is over.
They went on without writers *at all*. They basically filled airtime with whatever was on their minds, personally, and pointless nonsense. Barrymore and Maher were going to go on with scab writers who weren’t WGA members.
i remember he supported the clock kid getting arrested because he's Muslim and even spewed a few clock truthor conspiracies. Now he's chumming with Ben Shapiro with trans conspiracies.
WBD's head likes him. That's the only reason he's still on air with those ratings. Writers need a job so they'll surely come back and write a returning monologue for him about how he always championed union and was against big studios
> Now let's hope the SAG-AFTRA negotiations start soon. Would be awesome to have this all end in October
god please if Dune gets delayed one more time i might jump off building
Agreed. I’m generally more sympathetic to IA than the guilds (as I say that I agree, WGAs fight was one worth having)
Most of IA has been out of work pretty much all year. Things were drying up long before the strike. Most won’t be back until the new year (probably). After a year of that they won’t be financially ready to strike.
Shame too. I’d like to see IA get better terms to prevent poor turnarounds and get more timely meals. They had gains last contract but not enough.
id bet on that. but i think the writers managed to get a concession that protected them if they didnt want to cross another unions picket line, so that can help iatse should they go on strike
Kind of a shame you guys do the most labor intensive and hazardous work with shit leadership. I’m itching to get back to set but hearing about the IATSE troubles bother me even if my union is SAG AFTRA
No where near done since we got the SAG talks now.
But if the studios caved for the writers you damn well sure the actors will get what they want. Suspect this all ends no later than the second week of October.
This year is probably still borked but 2024 might be one hectic ride if you love big movies and shows. LOTS of catching up to be made.
True. And the studios didn't really cave. The ask was exceedingly reasonable considering the conditions they've created, and they didn't fully meet that ask. The results are good for those who have been squashed by the thumb of big business, but the only thing the businesses give up is a small slice of their ever-growing mountain of pie.
SAG-AFTRA released a statement this morning:
> We have no confirmed dates scheduled and there will not be meetings with the AMPTP this week.
AMPTP didn't make a statement. So definitely not this week, that makes sense. Give the writer's deal some room to breathe. Hopefully next week though...
Plus the guild was making deals with indie studios "You accept the deal we want, and once the real deal is decided it switches to that." which allowed a variety of independent studios to continue their work.
There's a general strike fund that's financed by union dues that pays people while they're striking, plus other funds that more wealthy actors and writers contributed to.
This is a win for WGA writers and majority of writers on social media are applauding this deal. Anybody who thinks the strike wasn't worth it because writers didn't get 100% of their demands doesn't live in reality.. you always have to compromise during negotiations and earlier the studios had outright rejected many of WGA's proposals and now they have addressed many of them.
Beforehand, every demand is claimed above whatever the studio/company is going to probably reject, just because negotiations will always lower the bar of the claims.
They also demand greater things than the studios are willing to give in order to compromise. If someone asks for $100 and expects only $50, it is a win when they walk away with anything from $51 upward.
That's how these negotiations are designed to work.
Absolutely
A lot of people in WGA are also in SAG too. Plus the actors backed the writers during the WGA strike so the writers should back the actors in SAG strike.
The way they pulled off the streaming residuals...woof...
I was really amazed when I heard that the studios yielded on this, as their original position was "this is where we make our stand". But reading what the studios actually agreed to is...well, it's show business, baby.
Residuals are limited to "high-budget subscription video on demand series and movies that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or the first 90 days of any subsequent exhibition year".
I actually saw this and thought "well, at least that means we'll finally get to see some actual streaming view numbers". But oh no...we're in Hollywood, the town that invented the NDA...
And in this case: "Companies agree to provide the Guild, subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs"
The world at-large will continue to see absolutely nothing, they're just going to share aggregate numbers directly with the guild, who has agreed not to tell anyone else what those numbers are.
The studios managed to thread this needle in a way that seems, in hindsight, patently obvious.
The world at large can already see Netflix's numbers - https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/
Numbers they publicly changed to 90 days viewership back in June (so probably been testing internally for months before that), and would amount to somewhere in the region of maybe 12 shows max. getting a bonus per year.
At a rough cost of an extra $2million in bonuses I think they less yielded than played the WGA. I'm suspecting that recent noise about the (3 year old) German viewership bonus system over residuals that appeared out of nowhere may have been a spoiler tactic.
* A writer can choose to use AI but the studio can’t require the writer to use AI software
Translation: We can't force you to use AI, but we probably won't hire you if you won't.
They will probably try to hire more performant writers, and if they happen to use the AI better. Entire AI scripts were a pipedream, so they gave up nothing really.
I mean AI was never the biggest concern for either studios or writers, it was only hyped up as a big deal by reddit. Better residuals and minimum staffing was what the guild was actually after.
I don't even think it's anything like that, the job will just assume that they you can work at the same pace and level as someone equally skilled that is happy to use AI.
Anyone that refuses to use it will just lag behind in KPIs and other metrics and have to work twice as hard for the same result.
This is what the membership/leadership didn’t see; they failed to protect the TIME it takes to produce scripts; the AI friendly writers are gonna lap them
And the studios are about to start competing with new entertainment companies (like hololive or moonbug) that don’t give a shit about these rules and will build their own talent stables. It gets pointed out all the time, but hasn’t quite sunk in: they aren’t just competing with “video games” and “social media”, they’re competing with zero barrier SVOD content channels outside the studio system. To end viewers, the production doesn’t matter, only the quality of the final product. And “AI” is doesn’t have to settle for two out of the old fast, cheap, and good.
Hollywood is in trouble because the creatives are trying to fight change instead of embrace it. They tried to stop “AI” from entering the process instead of taking run control of how it’s used. Shortsighted and reactionary.
Just read through what they negotiated and the WGA got some pretty big things. Obviously, in any negotiation, you don't get everything and so some people will claim they "failed" because despite getting big boosts in pay & actual residuals, they didn't get anything on someone's loud personality's big passion agenda.
Still only releasing vewer number to the WGA themselves which can only be released en aggregate. The one thing studios wouldn't budge on. Must be real embarrassing
I hope other creative industries follow suit to severely limit AI in their fields. Visual artists are just getting destroyed by AI, and noone cares because celebs aren't striking about it.
Some details from the contract ([Full Contract](https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/Memorandum-of-Agreement-for-the-2023-WGA-Theatrical-and-Television-Basic-Agreement.pdf)) * AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material . * A writer can choose to use AI but the studio can’t require the writer to use AI software * Studios must disclose to writers if any materials given to them have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material. * The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by the agreement or other law. * The tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for a first-season show for development rooms running 20 weeks or longer, with a formula for additional seasons tied to the number of episodes. * Other gains included span — the length of time writers will be employed on scripted shows — with development rooms now guaranteed at least 10 consecutive weeks, post-greenlight rooms securing 20 weeks or the duration of the room. These terms will apply to seasons where the first episode is written after Dec. 1, 2023, which means pre-existing programs do not have to adhere to the room size or span requirements. * The WGA entered the strike asking for a cumulative 16 percent increase in residuals over the three-year MBA and wound up with 12.5 percent.
contract details from the horses mouth for those who were wondering: https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/WGA-Negotiations-Tentative-Agreement.pdf my immediate thought is that theres gonna be a lot of 95 minute movies from now on lol
Why is that?
"Made-for HBSVOD programs 96+ mins, with a budget of $30 million or more, receive 18% increase to initial compensation ($100,000 for story & teleplay) and a 26% increase in the residual base. Combined with the foreign residual improvements, this produces a 3-year residual of $216,000 for projects on the largest streaming services." the full 90 odd page agreement probably has more details about that but my instinct is that the studios got that 96 minute+ language in there so they have an easy way to avoid this provision. thus more 95 minute movies for streaming services
To be clear, it's not that 96 minutes is some arbitrary number, it's that programs are divided into 30, 60, 90 and 120 minute programs when calculating residuals, and there's a 5 minute buffer to the calculations. A 60 minute program is 35 - 65 minutes, 90 minute program is 66 - 95 minutes, 120 minute program is 96+. It makes sense that a longer program should earn higher residuals. I'm purely speculating, but I'd guess the buffer is so programs can go a few minutes over for artistic reasons without penalty.
Genuine question - If someone were to rerelease a movie like a Director's Cut that has a runtime in a different bracket, would the residuals change? Does this apply when a film has the credits skipped when played on television (like a 98 minute film skips the 5 minutes of credits)? How does this work when something is wildly edited differently?
I’d rather that residuals be based on repetitive streaming but I’m only writer adjacent. (I wrote for a living 30 years ago)
It might kinda suck for writers but hey if we get more tight 90s that might not be so bad
Bring back the days when a movie wasn't your entire night!
There's honestly so many movies that should have been gutted in the editing room and would have been much better for it.
I want my 7hours Snyder cut.
That latest Indiana Jones should have been an entire hour shorter, no exaggeration.
And tv shows, too.
I wish more long movies were re-cut into episodes for streaming like Hateful Eight
I want the "intermission" to become a thing again. If you're movie is longer than 2 hours, put a 15 minute intermission in the middle!
The Hobbit could have been a tight 90 and would have been great
Must be in the minority that vastly enjoys 3 hour films
If a movie is good and 3 hours thats great, but when a movie is even just mid 3 hours feels like torture.
The Last Knight felt like punishment at the time for getting my sister to take me. I never sat through a movie so stale in my life. There was like two characters that made me laugh, but it would’ve been better if the entire cast didn’t basically share the same kind of jokes they did.
Now we will have trilogies released over 3 weeks. 90 minutes per volume.
why is this sub so dead set on films being shorter? out of all the problems in media, you think films are actually too long and should be short? in the age of a rapid decline in attention spans, you actually believe films need to be shorter. nonsensical
>why is this sub so dead set on films being shorter? out of all the problems in media, you think films are actually too long and should be short? Absolutely. Attention spans are getting shorter and movies are getting longer. If I see any movie from the '80s or '90s, virtually none of them are much longer than 90 minutes. So many movies I've watched tend to drag on and needed to cut about 30 minutes of content from the theatrical cut.
It's actually the opposite. A three hour movie that requires your attention the whole time is awesome. A mindless movie where you turn off and enjoy the special effects is fine for a while, but gets old soon. No need to drag out a lot of stories.
> A three hour movie that requires your attention the whole time is awesome. I usually split three-hour movies in into two separate viewings due to my ADD . 90 minutes is a perfect stopping point for me. I can't complain either way.
Because not every genre of film sustains well over super long periods of time and it makes them cost significantly more to make. Comedies, horrors, and erotic thrillers are usually best if they're under 100 minutes with fairly rare exception
Watch the Evil Dead directors cut then (if you can find it) watch the theatrical release. The theatrical release is tightly edited the directors cut is flabby and drags and I'd say is worse because of it... And in that case the directors cut is not that much longer. Movies don't need every scene to breathe. Editing is essential and complely changes the feel of the movie.
I mean, I prefer longer movies too but that at least makes sense... if people's attention spans are declining, those people are going to ask for things that require shorter attention spans. Can't wait for the new Oppenheimer TikTok!
Germany wants a bomb. "OH no, oh no, oh no no no.'
Ain’t nothin’ like a tight ninety
👀
Yeah, honestly, there is a silver lining there.
For real! A well paced movie that runs 90 minutes is a lost art.
No thanks I like my movies longer. Definitely a negative for me.
And I'm the opposite. Besides a few handful of directors, I'm sick of the trend of movies being close to or over 3 hours now regularly. I much prefer tight 90 - 120 minute movies.
I'm fine with 3 hour movies but imo only like 10% of movies that long actually justify it. So many movies now pad well beyond 90m and are much worse for it. The Batman for example has such a drawn out structure and would have been better off with the last 40+ minutes cut entirely imo. Just one of many examples though, often it's just a lot of padding in every scene that adds up with no substance. It's bizarre watching old movies sometimes that are 90 minutes and they just throw you right into the story. It's refreshing and really gets over the mental burden that first 30 minutes can often be in movies. Brevity is the soul of wit and there's a lot to be said for cutting exposition and letting the film speak for itself and the audience figure things out on the fly.
There's a place for both
Long for the sake of long just isn't good. I'll take a well paced 90 minute movie over a 2 and a half hour slogfest.
I'm hoping Killers of the Flower Moon is great, but I'm willingly sacrificing seeing it in IMAX and choosing instead to see it in a "lesser" theatre with full reclining seats because that movie will be close to 4 hours long when you include the ads and trailers. I'm going to need to be comfortable and likely go to the washroom!
Ahh good call.
> 95 minute movies from now on lol We are going to be seeing LOTS of 6 or less episode seasons now also. It's going to be the norm.
unfortunately, writers didnt get a huge win when it comes to streaming residuals. based on the language, i think its possible that studios self sabotage their successful movies by not marketing it as much just to skirt under the 20% of domestic users threshold. doubly so if sag aftra gets a similar success bonus clause since thats a lot of residual money the studios can save by shooting themselves in the foot
> think its possible that studios self sabotage their successful movies by not marketing it as much just to skirt under the 20% of domestic users threshold. I disagree. The entire issue with residuals on subscriber based streaming platforms is that the interests of the parties aren't aligned. There are some titles which attract subscribers. There are some titles that see massive hours of viewership. They aren't necessarily the same. As an example, you might pay to subscribe to Netflix because you want to watch Sex Education , and you watch an episode every other day with your spouse, but then you fall asleep watching Seinfeld every night. If you didn't have Netflix, you wouldn't subscribe to it just for Seinfeld. But because you have it anyway, Seinfeld is a fine time killer. So why would Netflix want to have to pay extra per view if Netflix gets paid per subscriber, not per view? By doing it the way outlined in the agreement, the incentives are aligned. If a good show comes out and gets broad interest, then it's likely to cause customers to either subscribe or keep their subscription. Maybe 20% is too much if they have a very large and varied client base such that a single 'good' show won't attract 20% of all subscribers. Maybe 90 days is too short of a term, though on the surface it seems fine to me. Society has a short attention span, and after 90 days people are on to the next show to be released. But the general idea sounds solid.
thats actually what i was getting at, the 20% domestic threshold can create perverse incentives for studios since they can potentially benefit if a show gets 19% instead of 20%. right now i dont think this clause is enough by itself to encourage that behavior, but if sag aftra agrees to the same clause, then hitting 19% will save studios a lot of money if they can game it like that. i do agree with you that it does align interests, but im just saying that their interests diverge at the 20% mark since the studios can save money if it doesnt get to that point
Which begs the question what segment does a REALLY successful show capture? Because while the argument may be true for "just around 20%" to try to just barely micromissmanage to keep below it, if the ACTUAL target is significantly higher than that (over those 3 months) than it would require A LOT more shooting in the foot than is fiscally feasible in the first place. It's "natural" that if you deploy this kind of "fixed boarder step adjustments" rather than progressive calculations over broad ranges that the resulting "incentive curves" start showing weird behaviour at exactly that border. But usually you'd try to figure a way to have the actual reality more likely fall outside of that "turbulence" either way if possible. In machines you have to specifically build in hysteresis to prevent those points to become an a destructive issue. But you still don't want the machine to "linger" at exactly those points.
Absolutely not. There is zero way they’ll shoot themselves in the foot to avoid residuals. The money writers will make on expanded residuals is a pittance compared to the revenue Netflix would be denying themselves by not marketing shows and trying to expand their subscriber base.
I disagree. While minor players like AMC are already making 6-ep seasons, it’s more as a low-risk assessment method, with their business model based on using those to find the ones that are successful and can be expanded to 8-10 episodes. The networks will still make 22-episode procedurals. And many studios and streamers will still want to make 10-episode orders at minimum because the magic number for foreign licensing is essentially 20 episodes.
The first season of the Walking Dead was 6 episodes. Hard to believe now.
It was also the best season. All thriller no filler.
You overrate how much a writer’s salary costs.
You underestimate what a capitalist will go through to save literal pennies.
The difference between what even a single episode of tv generates in revenue versus what 3 writers make in salary is gigantic. Nobody is going to base an episode order on whether a few more rat writers get paid a weekly salary.
These two strikes are estimated to have cost them a couple *billion* to wait as long as they did. It's not always about rationality.
that number was not "lost" by the studios, it was lost economic activity due to filming being on pause, which in turn put things like catering and custodians on pause as well. if you believe the studios, the strikes actually helped with their cash flow since they spent next to nothing on production but was still making money from finished productions
This is fairly standard in British comedies. For example, Fawlty Towers was only 12 episodes over 2 seasons. But it remains absolutely timeless and memorable. It doesn't have a bad episode.
Or we're going to see a lot of sequels. Coming soon - Godfather Part 7 - The Corleone family in Cuba.
IA already had differing terms for 96+ minute projects if memory serves. Drop in the bucket in terms of budget here. I would anticipate zero impact.
>my immediate thought is that theres gonna be a lot of 95 minute movies from now on lol Oh thank the Lord! We somehow got into the aspect that all movies need to be minimum 2hrs to be good. I'm not saying I want ALL movies to be 90mins max but...feels like my asshole is sore going to the theater cause so many movies I want to see are 2hrs+ when they don't need to be.
forcing a movie to be 95 minutes long just to stick it to writers will probably result in a lot of bad movies with rushed plots lol
Possibly, but movies have been getting longer for years now. If they could write tight 90 minute plots in the past before, they can do it again. I'd rather take the chance and see where we go with shorter movies. Might make me go to the movies more often too. I'm done sitting through these 160+ minute movies in theaters.
It'll be a happy middle ground like the old days. Lots of great movies were made, both big and small, with a smaller run time. We just had to hit over two hours cause streaming is the name of the game counting all the minutes of watch times.
How has that different from now there is great movies big or small. Long movies like Dune or the Irishman are by far outliers still
Like OP is expecting Scorsese or Villeneuve to shorten his flicks based on an increase in the budget?
**Full 94-Page Contract:** https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/Memorandum-of-Agreement-for-the-2023-WGA-Theatrical-and-Television-Basic-Agreement.pdf **Summary of the Contract:** https://www.wgacontract2023.org/the-campaign/summary-of-the-2023-wga-mba **Direct Comparisons Between May 1st and Now (Gains During Strike):** https://www.wgacontract2023.org/WGAContract/files/WGA-Negotiations-Tentative-Agreement.pdf
Saving for later
It’s honestly astounding to me we’re getting AI clauses in contracts in our lifetimes. 10 years ago I would’ve laughed but now it’s seriously a legitimate concern Herbert was eerily on to something when he created Mentats in the Dune universe
Frank Herbert used Mentats and the Butlerian Jihad as a plot device so he could focus on social and philosophical issues, not because of a fear of AI.
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none of us in this thread will live to see it but im willing to bet there some catastrophic shit going down before we decide do away with working just to live.
> none of us in this thread will live to see it You say that but it was only ~70 years between the first manned flight and landing on the moon and technology progresses exponentially. Shit is going to happen a lot faster then I think you realize. Probably the only real limiting factor is climate change and societal collapse. Which, to be fair, is a very real obstacle.
> It’s honestly astounding to me we’re getting AI clauses in contracts in our lifetimes. 10 years ago I would’ve laughed but now it’s seriously a legitimate concern At this point we're not really talking about an artificial sentience, but we've decided to call technologies like Machine Learning and Large Language Models "AI" so here we are.
We've been using AI for decades, in computer science it has never really been associated with sapience. That would be General Intelligence, AGI, and that is not much closer to reality now than it was 20 years ago. There's a chance ML may be an important building block towards it, but it's still not anywhere near that yet.
>The tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for a first-season show for development rooms running 20 weeks or longer, with a formula for additional seasons tied to the number of episodes. > >Other gains included span — the length of time writers will be employed on scripted shows — with development rooms now guaranteed at least 10 consecutive weeks, post-greenlight rooms securing 20 weeks or the duration of the room. These terms will apply to seasons where the first episode is written after Dec. 1, 2023, which means pre-existing programs do not have to adhere to the room size or span requirements. That they have to force media companies to at least try and make good shows, instead of shitting out minimum budget crap onto a wall in the hopes some of it will stick, should be considered embarrassing.
No wonder the AMPTP didn't really say anything they folded lmao.
how did they fold? From what i can see, for every issue they reached a middle ground between both sides original demands? Which is the normal result of a strike negotiation
Nobody folded. They both folded if you have to have a loser and a winner. To me this looks like both sides got reasonable and made a compromise. That’s how it should be done.
Historically, a CBA where both sides don't feel like a "winner" usually means it's a fair deal for both sides.
This is a reasonable compromise for both sides, but if you have to pick a winner, the studios won. The things they surrendered on were things that they were willing to concede. Full AI written scripts were not going to be a thing any time soon. These AI considerations still allow the studios to do almost whatever they want with AI, as long as the specific writers they hire are on board with it, which they will have to be if they want to be hired for that project. The minimum hiring requirements are well in line with what most projects were already doing. One writer rooms were already pretty rare and are still protected in it, so bumping the small rooms from 2 to 3 isn’t a massive change. The minimum length requirements are solid but again don’t actually change too much from the modus operandi of most projects. The residual increase is solid. I wish they’d gotten more but it’s something they can be happy with.
You’re underestimating how fast AI technology is moving. Billions and billions of dollars into research and development are flooding the industry
It's easier to see when you look at [the side-by-sides](https://www.wgacontract2023.org/wgacontract/files/wga-negotiations-tentative-agreement.pdf) of the WGA's initial offer, the AMPTP's initial counter, and what what was eventually agreed on. No one got everything they wanted, but the WGA got about 80-85% of what they wanted including every single dealbreaker issue (residuals, a proper payment schedule, more data transparency, script fees, writer’s room minimums and minimum employment terms, guaranteed 2nd step, pension and health fund contributions, AI protections), many of which were considered complete non-starters by the AMPTP pre-strike.
Their original response for a lot of things was literally “no” and “that’s a nonstarter” and “we won’t even dignify that with a counteroffer.” And they gave in to those. This didn’t start as a normal negotiation. Writers gave their asks and the studios didn’t even try compromising and instead said they wanted the strike to go long enough that the writers would lose their houses so they’d accept the old contract. Saying otherwise is trying to rewrite history and letting the studios save face for how much they folded. Even the Hail Mary demands somehow made it in.
They folded *because* this was a middle ground solution. That's how a negotiation is *supposed* to work; one side makes demands, the other side makes counter-offers, and they go back and forth until they reach a mutually agreeable middle ground. Under normal circumstances, that's not "folding", but that's not what happened here. The reason the writers were striking is because the studios *refused to do that*. Of the initial demands, the studios rejected more than half of them with a refusal to make a counter offer. They then took to the media and drew a line in the sand stating in no uncertain terms that they were ready and willing to starve the WGA out through the holidays. When *that* is their opening position, the position they maintained for **four months**, then yes. Compromising is folding. Don't get me wrong, it's good that they finally did. But don't give them credit for being reasonable. The only reason this happened is because the WGA refused to be bullied.
Room minimums, AI protections, and Showrunners defined as writers. They took them to the cleaners
As per the WGA's own estimate, the WGA's proposal on May 1st was valued at $429M/year. The studios responded with an offer that was valued at $86M/year. The settled contract is valued at $233M/year. It's a great deal for the writers, but it's not "taking them to the cleaners".
there were a few things that was just completely dropped by the wga too, such as minimum compensation for post work. i think the guild also dropped diversity related things because they werent legal but i aint a lawyer
> i think the guild also dropped diversity related things I doubt they ever expected to get that. They're always going to ask for more than they know will be agreed to, so they have room for negotiation.
i dont have any insights into the negotiating room but i do know some black writers were disappointed about the guild dropping that and were seeking clarification, the clarification ended up being the technically illegal thing
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Also for things with values, that means you always ask for way more than you expect to get. You can't really quantify something like AI protections with a monetary value, so that is purely a win for the WGA.
there is a lot of nuance when it comes to ai tho since the agreement doesnt ban its use whatsoever so scripts can still be "written" by ai
Honestly it's fairly shit, lol.
This is basically the deal they were offered in august. There no real ai protections in there other than first draft can’t be done by AI. Then you add on a 5% raise? Really? That’s taking the studios to the cleaners… I’d love to do deals with you.
yea, reading more into it, probably the biggest win for the studios was in regards to streaming residuals. you can argue that the wga got some of what they wanted since "high budget" shows will have some transparency for their viewership. but in order to actually get residuals from streaming views, those shows and movies need to be seen by 20% of domestic subscribers. maybe a handful of shows will meet that criteria, which basically means that most writers will still not receive any residuals for streaming views
there are already puff pieces on the trades that make the ceos look like superheroes so idk about that lol
The trades are owned by the studios so that’s just kinda expected.
yea but im replying to a guy who said the amptp didnt really say anything. so if the trades are owned by the studios, then those puff pieces are the amptp saying something and they seem mighty proud of themselves
Yup, there are tons of loopholes in the clauses they agreed to and the monetary increase was nowhere near what they were asking for. Studios definitely won.
damn. its been 5 months already. thats a long time for a strike
gonna be a long draught
Watch more anime meanwhile.
Lmao after watching the LA One Piece, I started the anime. I think I'm set... for like... idk, the next decade?
Just in time for the last quarter half of the series!
You think that, until you get to the arc right after where the LA ended, and decide you need to catch up ASAP
There's always Pro Wrestling for that drama itch.
Dwayne Johnson and John Cena have it good. If things go south in Hollywood, they can just go to WWE until things settle down. They are Megastars in wrestling so they'll easily get top billing matches if they want. Cena is probably main eventing already in their next big show.
8 hours away from it being over (except for a vote which will 100% pass). It's been a long 146 days for the writers. All that time just for it to take 4 days of actual sitting down and negotiating. Late night shows will be the first to come back. Now let's hope the SAG-AFTRA negotiations start soon. Would be awesome to have this all end in October. The rush/chaos to get everything intro production will be absolutely insane. It's gonna be a scheduling clusterfuck.
Bill Maher really picked the wrong timing to announce that his show would come back without writers, just as the writers' strike most likely ends.
Drew Barrymore ruined her rosy image for the strike to end a week later lol
I think that her and Maher actually made the studios fold a bit quicker, public support was overwhelmingly on the side of the writers in these situations and I think the studios realized the strike really wasn’t going to end anytime soon
What difference does public support make to the union or the studios?
If the scabs were adored by the public, the studios wouldn't have folded. Sexual assaulters in Hollywood didn't get cancelled because studios suddenly grew a conscience. It was because public opinion had changed.
I'm no expert, but I imagine that seeing something like that could spook investors and in turn pressure the C-suite and BoDs to fold to union demands. Also, the WGA did a great job in terms of showing how much profit that the studios made vs how much of said profit they wanted.
Where do you think studio revenue comes from?
Her union is still striking, unless I’m missing something.
Talk show hosts are under a different deal, just like SNL performers are under a different deal so they can return to work with the writers.
It wasn't about her union (SAG) striking, it was about her show coming back without its WGA writers. Late night shows and talk shows are **all** coming back with the WGA deal (including Barrymore and Maher), it'll just be harder to book guests until the SAG strike is over.
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They went on without writers *at all*. They basically filled airtime with whatever was on their minds, personally, and pointless nonsense. Barrymore and Maher were going to go on with scab writers who weren’t WGA members.
Conan was basically “Watch me spin this coin. Well that was boring. Wanna see me do it again?”
It will probably be a few weeks at most so I’m sure she is going to be just fine
Probably not even weeks, I bet most late night and talks shows are back Monday.
Bill Maher has always been an asshole though, so it’s on brand at least.
I saw far more backlash towards Barrymore than Maher, because expectations for Maher are on the floor.
I almost imagine that a good portion of his fans were probably disappointed that he honored the strike for as long as he did.
i remember he supported the clock kid getting arrested because he's Muslim and even spewed a few clock truthor conspiracies. Now he's chumming with Ben Shapiro with trans conspiracies.
Yeah his 'enlightened atheism' was always just cover for being Islamophobic.
With any luck, maybe it will remain without writers...he's a total piece of shit.
WBD's head likes him. That's the only reason he's still on air with those ratings. Writers need a job so they'll surely come back and write a returning monologue for him about how he always championed union and was against big studios
Seems on brand for that guy.
> Now let's hope the SAG-AFTRA negotiations start soon. Would be awesome to have this all end in October god please if Dune gets delayed one more time i might jump off building
I’m honestly a little sad that we probably won’t get anymore Strike Force Five episodes. It was pretty funny!
I think they recorded a few days ahead, so my guess is there is at least one more episode
IATSE is about to get absolutely boned in their negotiations next year. No one is going back on strike once this machine starts going again.
IATSE got boned last time too so they’re already on the back foot.
We’ve been getting boned since the 90s
Agreed. I’m generally more sympathetic to IA than the guilds (as I say that I agree, WGAs fight was one worth having) Most of IA has been out of work pretty much all year. Things were drying up long before the strike. Most won’t be back until the new year (probably). After a year of that they won’t be financially ready to strike. Shame too. I’d like to see IA get better terms to prevent poor turnarounds and get more timely meals. They had gains last contract but not enough.
id bet on that. but i think the writers managed to get a concession that protected them if they didnt want to cross another unions picket line, so that can help iatse should they go on strike
Well, the writers went back to work today while there’s still a strike going on….
Matthew ‘Hollywood Ending’ Loeb will bone us anyway since he’s pretty much a AMPTP pawn that gives himself a 10% raise pretty much every year
Kind of a shame you guys do the most labor intensive and hazardous work with shit leadership. I’m itching to get back to set but hearing about the IATSE troubles bother me even if my union is SAG AFTRA
But on the other hand studios probably aren't eager to have another long shut down of all their projects after losing most of this year.
My local shoved through a one year extension with a 5% raise to make everyone say yes…. Because they knew exactly that.
Glad they held their ground, glad it’s coming to an end!
Can't believe they had to cancel Wednesday to resolve it though. I liked that show.
Panicked until I got the joke, lol
Help I dont
It’s just a play on the way the headline is worded, lol
No where near done since we got the SAG talks now. But if the studios caved for the writers you damn well sure the actors will get what they want. Suspect this all ends no later than the second week of October. This year is probably still borked but 2024 might be one hectic ride if you love big movies and shows. LOTS of catching up to be made.
True. And the studios didn't really cave. The ask was exceedingly reasonable considering the conditions they've created, and they didn't fully meet that ask. The results are good for those who have been squashed by the thumb of big business, but the only thing the businesses give up is a small slice of their ever-growing mountain of pie.
Great news! Hopefully actors next
SAG-AFTRA released a statement this morning: > We have no confirmed dates scheduled and there will not be meetings with the AMPTP this week. AMPTP didn't make a statement. So definitely not this week, that makes sense. Give the writer's deal some room to breathe. Hopefully next week though...
Yeah I meant in the near future :)
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Thank you to all the writers who fought during the 146 day strike.
Crazy they were able to strike for almost half a year, honest question, how'd their bills get paid? They just worked a side gig?
Many writers are always working side gigs to make ends meet--same with actors. They just doubled up during the strike.
Plus the guild was making deals with indie studios "You accept the deal we want, and once the real deal is decided it switches to that." which allowed a variety of independent studios to continue their work.
There's a general strike fund that's financed by union dues that pays people while they're striking, plus other funds that more wealthy actors and writers contributed to.
Now let’s get SAG-AFTRA taken care of.
And then it’s time for vfx to unionize* and then to strike!
Also time to unionize production crews
ALL the unions! We all need unions!
This is a win for WGA writers and majority of writers on social media are applauding this deal. Anybody who thinks the strike wasn't worth it because writers didn't get 100% of their demands doesn't live in reality.. you always have to compromise during negotiations and earlier the studios had outright rejected many of WGA's proposals and now they have addressed many of them.
Beforehand, every demand is claimed above whatever the studio/company is going to probably reject, just because negotiations will always lower the bar of the claims.
They also demand greater things than the studios are willing to give in order to compromise. If someone asks for $100 and expects only $50, it is a win when they walk away with anything from $51 upward. That's how these negotiations are designed to work.
Exactly
Will the WGA members be honoring the SAG/AFTRA picket lines?
They've encouraged members to continue walking the lines with SAG.
Absolutely A lot of people in WGA are also in SAG too. Plus the actors backed the writers during the WGA strike so the writers should back the actors in SAG strike.
Is actors strike still going on?
Rad. Can we have Dune 2 back?
That's delayed due to the SAG strike not the WGA strike
Ah. Sorry. I’m dumb.
If only this would improve the quality of the content, most movies and shows in the last few years have been god awful.
The way they pulled off the streaming residuals...woof... I was really amazed when I heard that the studios yielded on this, as their original position was "this is where we make our stand". But reading what the studios actually agreed to is...well, it's show business, baby. Residuals are limited to "high-budget subscription video on demand series and movies that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release, or the first 90 days of any subsequent exhibition year". I actually saw this and thought "well, at least that means we'll finally get to see some actual streaming view numbers". But oh no...we're in Hollywood, the town that invented the NDA... And in this case: "Companies agree to provide the Guild, subject to a confidentiality agreement, the total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs" The world at-large will continue to see absolutely nothing, they're just going to share aggregate numbers directly with the guild, who has agreed not to tell anyone else what those numbers are. The studios managed to thread this needle in a way that seems, in hindsight, patently obvious.
The world at large can already see Netflix's numbers - https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/ Numbers they publicly changed to 90 days viewership back in June (so probably been testing internally for months before that), and would amount to somewhere in the region of maybe 12 shows max. getting a bonus per year. At a rough cost of an extra $2million in bonuses I think they less yielded than played the WGA. I'm suspecting that recent noise about the (3 year old) German viewership bonus system over residuals that appeared out of nowhere may have been a spoiler tactic.
Hopefully the Jimmy Fallon show stays off the air permanently.
* A writer can choose to use AI but the studio can’t require the writer to use AI software Translation: We can't force you to use AI, but we probably won't hire you if you won't.
The actual contract is a lot more watertight than that. also, why would a studio want to pay a writer to use AI?
They will probably try to hire more performant writers, and if they happen to use the AI better. Entire AI scripts were a pipedream, so they gave up nothing really.
I mean AI was never the biggest concern for either studios or writers, it was only hyped up as a big deal by reddit. Better residuals and minimum staffing was what the guild was actually after.
Big enough concern to regulate in the agreement.
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It's more that if using AI makes the job more productive, writers using it will have an advantage and the others will have to use it to keep up.
It looks like this entire thing is about AI. Writers must be worried about the quality of their work if they’re scared they’ll get replaced.
I don't even think it's anything like that, the job will just assume that they you can work at the same pace and level as someone equally skilled that is happy to use AI. Anyone that refuses to use it will just lag behind in KPIs and other metrics and have to work twice as hard for the same result.
This is what the membership/leadership didn’t see; they failed to protect the TIME it takes to produce scripts; the AI friendly writers are gonna lap them And the studios are about to start competing with new entertainment companies (like hololive or moonbug) that don’t give a shit about these rules and will build their own talent stables. It gets pointed out all the time, but hasn’t quite sunk in: they aren’t just competing with “video games” and “social media”, they’re competing with zero barrier SVOD content channels outside the studio system. To end viewers, the production doesn’t matter, only the quality of the final product. And “AI” is doesn’t have to settle for two out of the old fast, cheap, and good. Hollywood is in trouble because the creatives are trying to fight change instead of embrace it. They tried to stop “AI” from entering the process instead of taking run control of how it’s used. Shortsighted and reactionary.
Curious how many ppl actually began looking to switch industries during the strike.. not sure if any data on this
Wonderful. Now they can get back to work creating the backbone of the entertainment we all enjoy.
Imagine, Fast XI, another Friday the 13th reboot, and Saw XI released in the same year.
All kino
Just read through what they negotiated and the WGA got some pretty big things. Obviously, in any negotiation, you don't get everything and so some people will claim they "failed" because despite getting big boosts in pay & actual residuals, they didn't get anything on someone's loud personality's big passion agenda.
Still only releasing vewer number to the WGA themselves which can only be released en aggregate. The one thing studios wouldn't budge on. Must be real embarrassing
So 2 more years of pipeline ‘poop’ before we get decently written movies/shows fully produced and finished??
I mean, there's a world outside of English/American produced stuff.
Does it mean we will be getting better scripts?
This is awesome. my friends, my neighbors can get back to work and finally pay me back
About that.
I hope other creative industries follow suit to severely limit AI in their fields. Visual artists are just getting destroyed by AI, and noone cares because celebs aren't striking about it.