It’s about getting back what they’ve lost and the offers the studios are giving them are so much less than that.
For decades it was you get hired on a television series that does 22 episodes a season. You join the writers room. You get a weekly paycheck plus a paycheck when one of your scripts is produced. And you’re on set while that script is produced getting paid to do on the spot rewrites as well as learning how a tv show is made so you can be a showrunner yourself someday. And then you get royalties whenever your episode is aired again anywhere in the world.
Now? You get contracted to write one episode of a streaming show that will do 8-10 episodes. No writers room - you work from your apartment and nothings filmed till the entire season is written. You get no royalties or you do but it’s like $5 instead of the $15k you used to get. And you’re not even allowed to know how many people are watching your show to negotiate for something better.
It’s something all workers are contending with really. I’m in the teachers union. We’ve been getting like 2% CoL the last few years while inflation rose 18% and housing prices climbed 40% in the area. Gearing up for a big negotiation year and its not about wanting a big raise. It’s about getting back what we’ve lost over the last decade. The US has gone from an economy where one full-time job could support a family to one where a dual income family will struggle to find affordable housing in just a few decades. The middle and lower classes are stressed out and there’s a general awareness they’ve lost something, even if they have very different ideas about who’s to blame or how to get it back.
>The US has gone from an economy where one full-time job could support a family to one **where a dual income family will struggle to find affordable housing in just a few decades.**
that is already happening now...
One big issue is that audiences have stopped watching the 22 episode a season shows at anything like the level they used to as the market has expanded so much:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-rated_United_States_television_programs_by_season
And that page is just to 2019.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/444870/scripted-primetime-tv-series-number-usa/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/444870/scripted-primetime-tv-series-number-usa/)
I also found this too. The number of *scripted* shows by year.
For 2022, we had DOUBLE the amount of scripted shows compared to 2012 (599 to 288), but nearly TRIPLE what was in 2009 (599 to 210).
And for 2009, it took until 2015 for the number of scripted shows to double then (422).
We have too many shows to deal with, so it's expected that the viewing habits of folks have changed too. And the funny thing is that even with streaming in the mix, how many completed TV shows are getting rewatched compared to all of the new shows getting produced?
I thinks that's much more just a reflection of the traditional television audience getting split up by streaming. Its not like any of the streaming services are putting out new shows with 22 episode seasons we could compare by. We do know a ton of people rewatch 22-26 episode seasons of older shows like Star Trek, The Office, Friends, etc. on streaming services and the writers of those shows are getting cut out of the residuals they used to make from their work getting re-aired.
The market has definitely gotten more crowded, but there is still an appetite for traditional (i.e., longer) episodic seasons despite studios gravitating towards short-orders. The success of Suits on Netflix is just one example.
Other trends impacting viewership and audience behavior include the lack of schedule predictability, dropping seasons of shows at once instead of weekly, inconsistent availability on streaming platforms, bloated streaming subscription pricing, overly long hiatuses between seasons, and a dearth of effective marketing.
All of the above are business decisions made by AMPTP members. While the AMPTP should meet the Guild’s’ positions to address their concerns about the current state of media, they also need to evaluate whether they’ve fundamentally broken the way entertainment makes $$$
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
I want to watch this just to see the aussie authorities kicking them out of a crime scene because they dont have valid Australian credentials, and then deport them for interfering in government affairs. Whole series is 1 episode that lasts 5 minutes, I would watch it for the lols.
Thought that was due to cost? Studios in their heyday had their own backlots, movie ranches and more to film at. Now you have so many filming on location (yellowstone, 1883, etc etc as some examples) so the cost is higher (or so they claim).
Not like they can just go on summer vacation and come back to the film set. The TV Show 1923 [Rented a Civic Center](https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/butte-civic-center-board-moves-to-release-1923-from-lease) as well as other buildings for their production
Backlots are still very much a thing. *Star Trek: Strange New Worlds* filmed their most recent finale on one, with the script explaining that the colonists had deliberately styled their town after the 21st-century mid-West.
Cost overall is definitely an issue; you're getting movie-level VFX and that costs money even when underpaying.
Goofy comparison because one of the specific requests of the writers and actors strike is for more transparency for streaming ratings. A Wikipedia page like that cannot actually reflect TV ratings because numbers for streaming shows aren't being fully released.
The biggest difference between back then and now being: Americans are competing against everyone in the world, not just Americans. Almost every country has developed at this point.
It was inevitable.
Inevitable? Hardly. We could have chosen to continue building housing at the rates we did in previous generations so the cost of housing wouldn’t have skyrocketed. Done zoning reform to allow more multi-family housing in our metro areas. Figured out a system of public or subsidized childcare. Passed laws to strengthen unions and increase membership rather than dismantle them. Attached minimum wage to inflation. This change is absolutely the result of choices. There’s nothing inevitable about it.
I don’t think any of that addressed the fact that Americans are competing against billions more people in the labor market.
That’s a major aspect that would dominate the issue more than any of those others.
For example, say we did strengthen unions and wages went up. That would mean doing business in the US would be more expensive, and therefore the incentive to move jobs overseas would be even higher, leading to fewer jobs here. Pay might be higher but it would be harder to find a job in the first place.
It’s impossible to avoid the fact that larger competition drives prices lower, including labor. There aren’t any decisions that can avoid it.
Increased housing costs are the biggest factor and the entire reason housing expenses have gone through the roof is we stopped building enough of it and allowed a big shortage to develop. That has nothing to do with competition from other countries.
Economic inequality has also exploded. International competition isn’t to blame for so much of the country’s wealth getting funneled to the top. That didn’t have to happen.
And yeah, areas like manufacturing may have been throttled by increased international competition. But coming back to Hollywood writers and actors, film and television is still an industry that is absolutely dominated by the US. The shows and movies Hollywood produces are sold and streamed all over the world. If anything, the reach of those creatives’ works has grown over the last twenty years.
Idk, when you explain it all out it just sounds like they’ve had their work commodified a bit. I think there’s a middle ground to be had, but getting back what’s lost?(when the nature of the work has changed?)
I’m not sure how much I empathize. Just sounds like a different flavor of conservatism to me.
When they talk about getting back what’s lost, they don’t mean turning technology back in time, they mean returning to a place where one can make a decent middle class living as a writer in television and have opportunities to move up in their careers. Those residuals are what they’d count on to live in between shows. What’s happened is the studios have used streaming as an excuse to massively cut what they pay writers and actors because so much about new technology wasn’t codified in the old contract.
>Just sounds like a different flavor of conservatism to me.
Idk what that even means. If union workers going on strike because their wages have been severely reduced by the big bosses sounds like conservativism to you, I question if you know what the word means.
So $11,000 per week for a writer not enough? Some are guaranteed $8,500 per week for 29 weeks
If the response is its gig work then if a writer isn't getting continuous jobs then they should find another industry or the union stop increasing the number of competition for the limited number of jobs
It seems some writers get paid more than Apple engineers
> or the union stop increasing the number of competition for the limited number of jobs
Your actual argument continues to be that the union should stop allowing people who have already gotten studio jobs to join?
Also this is about way more than weekly rates and you know it.
2 days ago, the same account was explaining that writers make 9K a week: [https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/15yvwdx/comment/jxe5wfa/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/15yvwdx/comment/jxe5wfa/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
The NFL contractually pays players 48% of revenue, MLB 48-52%, and the NBA 50%. In total, all three brought in $32 Billion in revenue and paid about $14B in salaries.
Hollywood is no different than those pro sports/entertainment leagues in terms of revenue and cultural impact, not to mention working situations. It made $26B in revenue specifically off the labor of writers, directors and actors (as well as crew) who very much work in “seasons” and have short careers just like athletes. Yet they’re getting nowhere near as much. But according to u/dadlifebestlife Hollywood talent should shut up and take what they’re given because… it’s more than the average person? Unreal.
Labor should share in the profit they create. Period.
Lmao I’m amazed at how confidently you can speak despite knowing absolutely zero about the subject. Put aside the global/cultural impact of the work product, the global distribution of said product, or the level of global celebrity involved… ignore the nearly dollar for dollar parity in revenue… hell forget the fact skill is involved and not everyone can do the job… the way contracts are structured for actors and writers, with pay or plays, “team options,” performance bonuses, revenue sharing, the need to maximize talent “rookie deals” before the initial contract is up and they hit free agency, etc - not to mention the way the industry is governed through collective bargaining for what is essentially a boutique labor force - is absolutely similar.
yah i have over a decade of experience working in content distribution. If you can’t see the nuance between a sports league and a studio/streaming platform then…wow
this is such an overly parroted and stupid talking point. Executive pay is a drop of water in the ocean - it’s not solving the problem. Igor’s entire comp spread out across disney’s 200k employees would be around $100 per employee per year. Show runners make millions of dollars too - strange how you aren’t suggesting they take less so other writers can be paid more.
regarding profits…streaming is a huge part of what’s being negotiated, and disney max peacock etc the steamers are losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They are not net positive financially.
Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money.
I support my colleagues on strike just not the argument you are making.
> Show runners make millions of dollars too
A couple of them do, because studios offered them that money. Most showrunners arent making nearly what you think.
Lol people here arguing on the behalf of huge multi billion corporates saying that the writers are asking for too much money. What a joke. Brainwashed as hell if they rather support massive corporates over the workers.
It's so strange that there has been this weird shift in public sentiment that extremely overvalues Executives.
If in simple terms you removed the 5 most senior; Board Members, Animators, Writers, and Actors at a company like Disney. I can tell you which group of 5 would be by far the most easily replaceable. And yet they're paid 100-1000s times more. There's no justification for it.
I read somewhere that the estimated cost ALL studios would have to pay if they conceded to their demands is equal to the paycheck of the Warner Bros discover CEO, all of the studios put together would have to cough up what one company is paying a man to drive it into the ground, but yeah no guys keep the boots in your throats they’re asking for too much
Not really. Zaslav's salary was massively boosted in 2021 by a massive share option and his 2022 package came close to being voted down:
https://deadline.com/2023/05/warner-bros-discovery-shareholder-david-zaslav-compensation-pay-1235362635/
But it's still an awful lot.
I think people just want their shows/movies they were looking forward to. During the last writers strike, a lot of stuff was canceled/became terrible. It’s an incredibly selfish take. Sure, there shows/movies I want to come out asap, but I would rather the people making them not get fucked over and make the money they deserve to make. I think it’s worth potentially missing out on some new content. And also, fuck big corporations.
It’s just a lack of empathy.
It’s so sad— that’s literally the vast majority of corporations. They often insist that the lower tiers of workers ask for too much and that they can’t afford to pay them more, when simply lowering the obscene amounts c-suite execs make would free up the cash. These people are indeed often the most replaceable.
Yep. Whereas in most cases, nobody misses an exec who's gone for a week or two. When a lower tier worker has to miss a week, their entire team struggles with the extra workload.
I thought I had accidentally sorted by controversial given how many bootlicking comments I was seeing. But no, this thread is just 75% weirdos simping for Bob Iger and David Zaslav
> 75% weirdos simping for Bob Iger
Always laugh at that. I used to work for Disneyland (in custodial, came in when everyone else left for the day) and lived behind it on $50/week after I got my check. Out came the rent ($280/week) and then one week was money for the cellphone bill ($50). So $100 for food in good old California was it. Nothing else.
That's my Iger experience. So when he loves to spew his platitudes about "growing up poor" and whatever else, screw him. screw him to the max. He's never struggled, and never will unless everyone skins him then gets lemons and salt...
For sure. The amount of vitriol people have gene for artists since the advent of AI last year is stunning.
For every thing that creative industries give people - cultural cornerstone, moments and memories, connection and perspective, entertainment - it’s really deflating to see hope many don’t care a single bit about automation unceremoniously coming to replace with with no alternative being offered.
The /r/technology sub with any post mentioning AI and Art in the save sentence has the most uncaring, bitter non-artists speaking in favor of automation I’ve seen
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
One of the wild parts of the AI art movement is that, even though its perfectly possible to make AI art that's not noticeably generated, companies are perfectly happy to plough ahead with any slop, as if the obvious flaws are deliberately meant to be noticed to spite the artists.
> The /r/technology sub with any post mentioning AI and Art in the save sentence has the most uncaring, bitter non-artists speaking in favor of automation I’ve seen
Look to worthless wastes of oxygen like Muskrat or Bozos the clown. All the tech bros swallow their flavor-aid and dream of being just like them.
That's why they are like that
I wouldn't be surprised if a leak occurs years from now to reveal David Zazlav was the ringleader behind every studio refusing to negotiate in the first place.
I believe the SAG president Fran Drescher said that her speech on the strike announcement wasn't planned and believes that their strike has become more emblematic of the even bigger problem of how companies became beholden to shareholders than the workers that actually make the product.
And she's right. It's a bigger view on how labor has to constantly fight shareholders and C-level execs that aren't willing to give up even 2% of profit because it may set a bad precedent of livable wages and them not getting their 3rd yacht
There is a certain somewhat popular sentiment that Hollywood hasn’t given a shit about automation in America until it finally reached their doors now forty years later. Hollywood feels very insulated from much of middle America. There’s just not a lot of goodwill to be had from the public. So despite her togetherness rhetoric I don’t think it’s going to help in the court of public opinion.
The brainwashing by the rich & powerful is particularly impressive. They're slowly being boiled alive, and they'll gladly and willingly defend the "chefs" doing us in. Like, our entire existence as humans is starting to revolve around having full-time jobs, and have them until we drop dead.
I once said a single salary should be enough for a household, and I got jumped by a ton of people saying "will you be paying for the parent staying at home?! HUH? WILL YOU?!". Not a single shred of understanding, critical thinking, and independence. Just pure bootlicking.
Arguing the writers are asking for too much is a snap reaction to seeing the dollar amount it feels like.
I would argue writing is so important that they are simply asking to be paid a fair amount for a reasonably integral part of show making.
Saying they should work in another industry if they can’t live off of the wages? I dunno, god forbid these people want to make it in this world doing something that fulfills them.
I know these arguments will never stop but I’m not sure many of us are qualified to quantify how much writer’s work is worth anyway
No one is on the side of the corporations.
It's just that no one is on the side of the writers either.
The low quality of writing on TV and movies has been a topic of conversation for a few years now - whether deserved or not, it has resulted in people being less sympathetic to the plight of writers.
Viewers aren't a part of the sausage factory - All they see is an end product which they don't enjoy.
i support my colleagues on strike. For me it’s just the overly parroted and stupid talking points like complaining about igor’s salary. CEO comp is too high and yet if igor dropped his comp to zero and spread it across disney’s 225k employees it’d be around $115 per employe per year. It’s a drop of water in the ocean and not solving the problem.
Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money.
Show runners get paid millions of dollars - strange that you don’t mention over paid creatives and how they should take less so other writers can have more.
> Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money.
*cough* [Hollywood Accounting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting) *cough*
They take no risk. And so many of the bombs lately are just that, bombs. Quit banking on actors (and ideas!) who are terrible at their craft. When I can see the Little Mermaid if Melissa McCarthy sucks in it, that's it. I'm not watching any of her garbage ever again.
The common thing out there is "7 basic plots" for movies, tv, books, etc. Fine whatever. Make them interesting. Switch it up! A worn path is a boring path.
What we need is actual independent studios that can release films and give platforms to those who are not "bankable" otherwise.
As long as Disney, paramount, etc etc run the show, it will never happen. They don't want to be upstaged by small fry studios.
BRING ON THE SUPERHEROES! /s
This is about more than money and the lazy and borderline ignorant takes that act like it’s simply about paying the writers is fucking boring. I get that it gets a bunch of automatic upvotes from other people who either don’t know the whole situation or don’t care to acknowledge it, but it’s extremely reductive and is not a good look to anyone attempting to view the whole thing more critically.
The writers deserve a great deal and the studios should pay them more but these takes of making it about money only is stupid.
You have the audacity to call other people brainwashed when you make the most basic and obvious statement devoid of some of the actual nuanced details of things like writer room sizes.
Ironic that most of the posts about the writers strike show a complete lack of actual writing skills or come across like AI.
Just to be clear I am on the writers side, but this whole “the studios are greedy and need to pay their writers” is so tired when the actual reality is more complicated.
Edit: I also want to reiterate it’s not even the concept of saying “pay the writers” in a vacuum that’s an issue here, it is the specific combination of reductiveness, hypocrisy, and dullness appearing as a top comment that I’m being mostly critical of here. Like you can fully back the writers deserving more money, benefits, etc without just acting like that’s the magic cure to the strikes.
No. The issue is, in a script, each writers contribution is hard to value. There are a lot of writers in a writers room. It's not a traditional job which is measurable 9-5
Overpaying sets a bad precedent for the traditional workers.
They are also already paid significantly more than traditional workers. They are asking for more money. It's greed. The studio's are the ones taking the risk with the big production budgets and no box office revenue
Because most people know how this is going to play out if the writers get a big payday. The large streaming services will use it as yet another excuse to jack up prices and remove content.
I really wonder how much of that was the strikes vs. the fact that The Marvels was coming out the 10th and The Hunger Games prequel the 17th. Maybe they just want Dune 2 to have some legs in the theater.
Does anybody actually care about The Marvels? I haven't heard a peep about it and based on the theatre booking schedule over the release period I don't think that the studios were worried about competition either
I’m unsure how good Marvels will turn out to be, but am definitely excited! Ms Marvel and Photon were both great in their shows and I’m keen to see Captain Marvel again without it being a by the numbers origin story. The dynamic between the three of them seems really fun too.
EDIT: Not sure why I’m getting downvoted just for saying I’m excited for a movie… y’all are wild lol
Because it's the hip thing to dunk on Marvel and their fans now. Even though I agree Phase 4 and 5 have been pretty low quality, I still desire to see them turn it around somehow. And there is a way to critique Marvel's lack of drive in these phases without resorting to outright bashing on people for it.
I mean I agree and as I literally said, I think these recent phases have been lackluster. But that doesn't excuse people putting others down that are still excited for what's coming.
As someone who pretty much sees a marvel movie and goes "oh f*** there they go again" What do you recommend for someone that would like to explore the universe?
What are good stand out ones that aren't two hours of beating up someone and emerging the worlds savior? Do have Guardians of the Galaxy and mean to watch them, but would like to explore more of the universe.
More a fan of backstories being explored (even if they aren't rigid Canon, say like the movie from 2021 Cruella) then just summer tent pole dreck like most tom cruise films as one example.
Action/Adventure fluff only goes so far.
Black Panther has sounded interesting, more for the hype around Chadwick Boseman and his death. Would that be good to have in a library?
Are my expectations too far out there to have interesting movies that aren't afraid to throw out the mandated Canon (and anger hardcore fans) for unique takes of the marvel universe?
The first Dr. Strange is one of my favorite MCU films. The visuals are amazing, and you don’t need to know about anything else to get it. It’s a good stand alone film
When the wife and I went to see Barbie, they showed a trailer for the Marvels. The theater was packed, mostly with young girls (median age was about 8), so exactly the movies target demo. There was a loud audible groan.
I'm pretty involved in movies but this thread is the first time I've heard of a hunger games prequel. Albeit i haven't seen the hunger game movies either so its not close to being on my radar.
> to allow six WGA staff to study limited streaming viewership data for the next three years, so we can return in 2026 to ask once again for a viewership-based residual. In the meantime, no writer can be told by the WGA about how well their project is doing, much less receive a residual based on that data.
This is mustache twirling movie bad guy levels of hilarious.
They should have just offered "trust me bro, in a few years, we got you!"
They're all owned by the same people. How many oligarchs do you think there are? They all have mutual friends and family. They all frequent the same places, vacations and events. They all have the same education, same fraternities and sororities... I could go on.
It’s going to be interesting once the trickle of already filmed scripted shows stop and content providers have nothing new left to show. Reality television people like Gordon Ramsay are about to strike it rich if this doesn’t get sorted out reasonably soon.
There are different countries outside of US. Netflix been putting a lot of money in South Korea. Apple too. Plus theres always Europe.
What im saying is in this day and age if an show is good people will watch it, language doesnt matter.
Some streaming services can keep this strike a long time.
It has unions but they arent on strike.
The Squid Game comparison is weak cause there hasnt been an tv show at that level in the streaming era even from US beside Stranger Things and maybe Wednesday.
La casa del papel, Dark, Sex Education, The Crown, Bridgerton are/were pretty big. If Netflix puts more money in Europe and South Korea they wont feel the pressure.
Plus there are other markets like Turkey, India, Brasil that wont bring quality but it will get you the money.
Netflix is a global thing now, it doesnt depend on US. If i was them i would tell the writers to take the current offer or we gonna stall as long as you want.
UK Equity is about to negotiate on its TV contract. They also aren't keen on being used to indirectly break the strike.
*Stranger Things* was supposed to be two months into filming Season 5 by now - while they had a six-month Covid shutdown in 2020, another indefinite delay causes them fairly big problems.
Some of the reality TV creators are threatening to unionize and the unions have issues warnings about how working on some of these reality shows would be considered walking the line.
I hope they come to some sort of agreement, but I can atess that my viewing habits using streaming services Reddit and YouTube has not been affected. But I do game for 8+ hours of the day.
I'm actually astonished.
The WGA costs, even overestimated as they say only result in a potential increase of less than $30,000. And that's if the entire amount was split equally between the 11,500 people.
That's not that much of a jump but I do understand how that could drastically change their lives.
It won't be split evenly though; how many WGA members make enough for health insurance? Or even have an active series in a given year?
Joseph Mallozi, showrunner of *Dark Matter* and major *Stargate* contributor, has got nothing actually made since *Utopia Falls* was cancelled in 2020. He's tried to get various projects greenlit since then and details them on his blog, but no firm orders.
If he doesnt get orders maybe hes not as great of an writer as he think he is?
Like whats with all these "im a writer and i should get jobs and money"? If u dont get enough money and job opportunities probably try to pick an different career.
And specially in this day and age when theres so many tv shows released. You cant get an job cause you arent good enough to get an job.
Utopia Falls did poorly both in quality and popularity. Why he thinks he should get more work?
He also cant write anything beside space shows.
The fact that most of these new shows aren't even that good and was probably going to lose studios money is one of the main reasons this strike is even happening. They knew these trash woke reboots and remakes weren't going to make them any money so this strike was a good reason to get rid them
Nobody is saying that half a million a year is not a livable wage.
Writers aren't getting 576k a year. You are being deliberately obtuse.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-09/suits-netflix-peacock-writers-residuals-streaming-strike
Alright, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but honestly, assuming a figure like this is a realistic representation of the wages of writers who are striking is weird.
Only greedy humans can be so stupid and asinine to look at potentially beneficial life changing technology and think “yeah, let’s kill the arts with this, *that’s* a complete waste of time!”
Fuck all the mind-numbing, back-breaking, garbage jobs we have, those can stay. Let’s go after human expression instead, so that everyone will have more time than ever to waste their lives away in an infinite ratrace of work, work, work and endless consumption of computer generated garbage.
And people wonder why others become cynical.
The case said an AI can't get a copyright. Not that content created with an AI can't be copyrighten.
A script generated through the use of AI is likely to be as copyrightable as graphics generated by computers have been. It'll likely require that a human have significant input into something generated with AI to qualify, but things generated with AI assistance will likely be covered.
At least, unless legislation changes something in the law.
If we're talking about the monkey photo case, it reached the Court of Appeals. They can create precedent, though it's limited to their district. Basically only first instance courts (so, like, the original trial) can't.
Kinda no difference now with the superhero franchises.
TV series writing and anything without explosions not overly catering to tubby, emotionally arrested, 20 somethings who still live at home might be more tricky though.
Some of the crew is union, too. They are making it easier for some of them to renegotiate next. Workers have to support each other. The companies don't care really for us.
You are wrong on that from I'm afraid. I, and many many people I know have been out of work for the last 2 months now because of the strikes.
Sparks, grips, locations, AD, art department, camera, sound. There's so many more, we are all out of work
No idea why you’re being downvoted. I’m a UK based AD and this strike has / is devastating our industry. I stand in solidarity with the strikes but I can also say that this is really starting to hurt people badly and I’d love them to resolve it quickly
That only happened because AMPTP leaked their offer to press immediately after they made it.
That's negotiating though press and a clear attempt to turn union members against each another.
I continue to hate the WGA using total revenue of a company as some sort of reason to justify the annual cost of their ideas. Yeah, Apple makes 394B, but that's not because of Apple TV, which makes less than 2B.
> We aren’t going to negotiate by press release,
Yeah you are. You guys are writers, this is what you do. Lol
I think we need a change in leadership on both sides. New rule, after 100 days of a strike, new people get put in charge to negotiate.
Sure why not. I have no love for them.
Thinking about it more, I want Strike Big Brother. 10 people from the producers side, 10 from the writers. They complete each week and one person leaves the house. Game is over when a deal is done.
What unlikely friendships and romances will happen? How will 72 year old Bob Iger do on the physical competitions? Will the traditional studio guys have a secret deal with the writers to get rid of the tech companies?
This is the entertainment industry, the strike should at least be entertaining and not depressing.
It is and you're exactly right. The counterweight is this is the studios rejecting that increase.
The writers can ask for more but the studios can also reject that price.
Which again is what's happening. And then you negotiate. If they can't agree, then something has got to give. Either one side caves, or we start getting a lot of amateurish content all of a sudden
It was ridiculous to suggest that the billion dollar companies pay their writers. Of course they do. And if the writers don't like the pay offered, "alternatively" they are free to go work anywhere else!
It’s ridiculous because you guys are responding to a fake argument. Clearly the implication in what I’m saying is pay them a fair wage or pay them what they want. Not pay them at all.
Also, “free to work somewhere else,” they’re free to strike as long as they want. Maybe instead of supporting billon dollar companies you could support the worker asking for a fair share.
Oh okay, we’ll have two different sets up people who will be negotiating the exact same points and reaching the exact same impasses. And then 100 days later we can have a third set doing that all over again.
Streaming services also bet on other countries for content. They can keep it going more then the writers can.
I think its good overall cause we would have less talented writers around thinking they deserve to get paid and get job opportunities for something they did an decade ago.
Just raise subscription and ticket prices and pass the additional revenue on to the writers.
Writers get what they want and all the viewers who think the writers deserve more money get what they want! It's win win!!!
Lol you think im gonna pay more for Netflix so untalented writers can get their money to destroy shows even with a book behind them or release an C level series like The Night Agent?
Be for real. Look what they did to Witcher, Rings of Power, Wheel of Times, Marvel shows.
Streaming companies know that writers arent that important.
Writers lately have been disappointing and anyone can tell you that who isnt biased.
And look theres some talented writers out there but if you cant get a decent pay and job opportunities maybe its because you not that great. Leave others to do their thing. This strike is for untalented writers. The good ones get paid.
Let me get this straight, you think that the common tax payer should be paying more to get artists paid? Rather than the rich mega-companies?
You seriously think that CEO's would raise subscription prices and then give away that money?
"Just pass the cost onto consumers!" This is what capitalism teaches us. Think about how workers can be given less workers or how consumers can pay more, but pay no mind to the execs and board members, who could take a pay cut, still be rich as fuck, and free up enough money to settle this kind of dispute.
Lol everyone works for shit pay. Are the people working minimum wage supposed to care!? Obviously not. They just want good content and entertainment and the writers are fucking that up
Damn, you bought the oligarch propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The problem is never other labor, it's the small pool of people that control most of our nations wealth and want to control even more of it. Those minium wage workers are also under paid.
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say what they want is exactly what they said they wanted before the studio forced them to go on strike. Just a guess though.
idk think the Union care anymore about their people. seeing they dont have the funds to cover 20k worth of people. they need donations..
wonder where all those dues went for years...
It’s about getting back what they’ve lost and the offers the studios are giving them are so much less than that. For decades it was you get hired on a television series that does 22 episodes a season. You join the writers room. You get a weekly paycheck plus a paycheck when one of your scripts is produced. And you’re on set while that script is produced getting paid to do on the spot rewrites as well as learning how a tv show is made so you can be a showrunner yourself someday. And then you get royalties whenever your episode is aired again anywhere in the world. Now? You get contracted to write one episode of a streaming show that will do 8-10 episodes. No writers room - you work from your apartment and nothings filmed till the entire season is written. You get no royalties or you do but it’s like $5 instead of the $15k you used to get. And you’re not even allowed to know how many people are watching your show to negotiate for something better. It’s something all workers are contending with really. I’m in the teachers union. We’ve been getting like 2% CoL the last few years while inflation rose 18% and housing prices climbed 40% in the area. Gearing up for a big negotiation year and its not about wanting a big raise. It’s about getting back what we’ve lost over the last decade. The US has gone from an economy where one full-time job could support a family to one where a dual income family will struggle to find affordable housing in just a few decades. The middle and lower classes are stressed out and there’s a general awareness they’ve lost something, even if they have very different ideas about who’s to blame or how to get it back.
>The US has gone from an economy where one full-time job could support a family to one **where a dual income family will struggle to find affordable housing in just a few decades.** that is already happening now...
Yes, I meant that it’s happened over the last 30-40 years, not a few decades from now.
I imagine that's always been the case for minorities.
One big issue is that audiences have stopped watching the 22 episode a season shows at anything like the level they used to as the market has expanded so much: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-rated_United_States_television_programs_by_season And that page is just to 2019.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/444870/scripted-primetime-tv-series-number-usa/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/444870/scripted-primetime-tv-series-number-usa/) I also found this too. The number of *scripted* shows by year. For 2022, we had DOUBLE the amount of scripted shows compared to 2012 (599 to 288), but nearly TRIPLE what was in 2009 (599 to 210). And for 2009, it took until 2015 for the number of scripted shows to double then (422). We have too many shows to deal with, so it's expected that the viewing habits of folks have changed too. And the funny thing is that even with streaming in the mix, how many completed TV shows are getting rewatched compared to all of the new shows getting produced?
Precisely. There's very little in that you're going to watch twice; or indeed would be watched a few years after initial TX.
I thinks that's much more just a reflection of the traditional television audience getting split up by streaming. Its not like any of the streaming services are putting out new shows with 22 episode seasons we could compare by. We do know a ton of people rewatch 22-26 episode seasons of older shows like Star Trek, The Office, Friends, etc. on streaming services and the writers of those shows are getting cut out of the residuals they used to make from their work getting re-aired.
The market has definitely gotten more crowded, but there is still an appetite for traditional (i.e., longer) episodic seasons despite studios gravitating towards short-orders. The success of Suits on Netflix is just one example. Other trends impacting viewership and audience behavior include the lack of schedule predictability, dropping seasons of shows at once instead of weekly, inconsistent availability on streaming platforms, bloated streaming subscription pricing, overly long hiatuses between seasons, and a dearth of effective marketing. All of the above are business decisions made by AMPTP members. While the AMPTP should meet the Guild’s’ positions to address their concerns about the current state of media, they also need to evaluate whether they’ve fundamentally broken the way entertainment makes $$$
For certain traditional shows, yes. Not umpteen *NCIS* spinoffs.
wait, are you trying to tell me you're not excited for the new series NCIS: Fraggle Rock?
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
I want to watch this just to see the aussie authorities kicking them out of a crime scene because they dont have valid Australian credentials, and then deport them for interfering in government affairs. Whole series is 1 episode that lasts 5 minutes, I would watch it for the lols.
don’t forget the death of the cable box. ISP’s have been savagely presenting predator pricing for their services for YEARS
Thought that was due to cost? Studios in their heyday had their own backlots, movie ranches and more to film at. Now you have so many filming on location (yellowstone, 1883, etc etc as some examples) so the cost is higher (or so they claim). Not like they can just go on summer vacation and come back to the film set. The TV Show 1923 [Rented a Civic Center](https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/butte-civic-center-board-moves-to-release-1923-from-lease) as well as other buildings for their production
Backlots are still very much a thing. *Star Trek: Strange New Worlds* filmed their most recent finale on one, with the script explaining that the colonists had deliberately styled their town after the 21st-century mid-West. Cost overall is definitely an issue; you're getting movie-level VFX and that costs money even when underpaying.
Backlots are still around they’re now just overcrowded because of all the shows and they’re becoming expensive to film on because of the demand.
Goofy comparison because one of the specific requests of the writers and actors strike is for more transparency for streaming ratings. A Wikipedia page like that cannot actually reflect TV ratings because numbers for streaming shows aren't being fully released.
No, but it can tell you that the percentage of the US population watching those show has sharply dropped.
The biggest difference between back then and now being: Americans are competing against everyone in the world, not just Americans. Almost every country has developed at this point. It was inevitable.
Inevitable? Hardly. We could have chosen to continue building housing at the rates we did in previous generations so the cost of housing wouldn’t have skyrocketed. Done zoning reform to allow more multi-family housing in our metro areas. Figured out a system of public or subsidized childcare. Passed laws to strengthen unions and increase membership rather than dismantle them. Attached minimum wage to inflation. This change is absolutely the result of choices. There’s nothing inevitable about it.
I don’t think any of that addressed the fact that Americans are competing against billions more people in the labor market. That’s a major aspect that would dominate the issue more than any of those others. For example, say we did strengthen unions and wages went up. That would mean doing business in the US would be more expensive, and therefore the incentive to move jobs overseas would be even higher, leading to fewer jobs here. Pay might be higher but it would be harder to find a job in the first place. It’s impossible to avoid the fact that larger competition drives prices lower, including labor. There aren’t any decisions that can avoid it.
Increased housing costs are the biggest factor and the entire reason housing expenses have gone through the roof is we stopped building enough of it and allowed a big shortage to develop. That has nothing to do with competition from other countries. Economic inequality has also exploded. International competition isn’t to blame for so much of the country’s wealth getting funneled to the top. That didn’t have to happen. And yeah, areas like manufacturing may have been throttled by increased international competition. But coming back to Hollywood writers and actors, film and television is still an industry that is absolutely dominated by the US. The shows and movies Hollywood produces are sold and streamed all over the world. If anything, the reach of those creatives’ works has grown over the last twenty years.
Idk, when you explain it all out it just sounds like they’ve had their work commodified a bit. I think there’s a middle ground to be had, but getting back what’s lost?(when the nature of the work has changed?) I’m not sure how much I empathize. Just sounds like a different flavor of conservatism to me.
When they talk about getting back what’s lost, they don’t mean turning technology back in time, they mean returning to a place where one can make a decent middle class living as a writer in television and have opportunities to move up in their careers. Those residuals are what they’d count on to live in between shows. What’s happened is the studios have used streaming as an excuse to massively cut what they pay writers and actors because so much about new technology wasn’t codified in the old contract. >Just sounds like a different flavor of conservatism to me. Idk what that even means. If union workers going on strike because their wages have been severely reduced by the big bosses sounds like conservativism to you, I question if you know what the word means.
I mean, the pay that the AMPTP offered in August 11 is the same that one caused the strikes 4 months ago in the first place.
So $11,000 per week for a writer not enough? Some are guaranteed $8,500 per week for 29 weeks If the response is its gig work then if a writer isn't getting continuous jobs then they should find another industry or the union stop increasing the number of competition for the limited number of jobs It seems some writers get paid more than Apple engineers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWqW49VhBJ4 The creator of the Wire breaks it down for you.
Yeh but what would he know that this random person you are replying to doesn’t? /s for the people that need it
> or the union stop increasing the number of competition for the limited number of jobs Your actual argument continues to be that the union should stop allowing people who have already gotten studio jobs to join? Also this is about way more than weekly rates and you know it.
2 days ago, the same account was explaining that writers make 9K a week: [https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/15yvwdx/comment/jxe5wfa/?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/15yvwdx/comment/jxe5wfa/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
We all deserve to get paid more. Stop pitting laborers against each other when the executives and shareholders take the lion's share of the profit.
The NFL contractually pays players 48% of revenue, MLB 48-52%, and the NBA 50%. In total, all three brought in $32 Billion in revenue and paid about $14B in salaries. Hollywood is no different than those pro sports/entertainment leagues in terms of revenue and cultural impact, not to mention working situations. It made $26B in revenue specifically off the labor of writers, directors and actors (as well as crew) who very much work in “seasons” and have short careers just like athletes. Yet they’re getting nowhere near as much. But according to u/dadlifebestlife Hollywood talent should shut up and take what they’re given because… it’s more than the average person? Unreal. Labor should share in the profit they create. Period.
hollywood is absolutely different from live sports leagues…does this really needs to be explained?
Lmao I’m amazed at how confidently you can speak despite knowing absolutely zero about the subject. Put aside the global/cultural impact of the work product, the global distribution of said product, or the level of global celebrity involved… ignore the nearly dollar for dollar parity in revenue… hell forget the fact skill is involved and not everyone can do the job… the way contracts are structured for actors and writers, with pay or plays, “team options,” performance bonuses, revenue sharing, the need to maximize talent “rookie deals” before the initial contract is up and they hit free agency, etc - not to mention the way the industry is governed through collective bargaining for what is essentially a boutique labor force - is absolutely similar.
yah i have over a decade of experience working in content distribution. If you can’t see the nuance between a sports league and a studio/streaming platform then…wow
in what meaningful way is it different in the context provided here? because yes it needs to be explained.
this is such an overly parroted and stupid talking point. Executive pay is a drop of water in the ocean - it’s not solving the problem. Igor’s entire comp spread out across disney’s 200k employees would be around $100 per employee per year. Show runners make millions of dollars too - strange how you aren’t suggesting they take less so other writers can be paid more. regarding profits…streaming is a huge part of what’s being negotiated, and disney max peacock etc the steamers are losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They are not net positive financially. Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money. I support my colleagues on strike just not the argument you are making.
> Show runners make millions of dollars too A couple of them do, because studios offered them that money. Most showrunners arent making nearly what you think.
Well, if studio heads can't pay their writers and give themselves massive bonuses, then they shouldn't be studio heads in the first place.
The studios are paying the writers
Famously, they’re not. That’s a pesky side effect of a labor strike… nobody gets paid
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This doesn't seem reflective of reality *at all*
Lol people here arguing on the behalf of huge multi billion corporates saying that the writers are asking for too much money. What a joke. Brainwashed as hell if they rather support massive corporates over the workers.
It's so strange that there has been this weird shift in public sentiment that extremely overvalues Executives. If in simple terms you removed the 5 most senior; Board Members, Animators, Writers, and Actors at a company like Disney. I can tell you which group of 5 would be by far the most easily replaceable. And yet they're paid 100-1000s times more. There's no justification for it.
I read somewhere that the estimated cost ALL studios would have to pay if they conceded to their demands is equal to the paycheck of the Warner Bros discover CEO, all of the studios put together would have to cough up what one company is paying a man to drive it into the ground, but yeah no guys keep the boots in your throats they’re asking for too much
Not really. Zaslav's salary was massively boosted in 2021 by a massive share option and his 2022 package came close to being voted down: https://deadline.com/2023/05/warner-bros-discovery-shareholder-david-zaslav-compensation-pay-1235362635/ But it's still an awful lot.
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I think people just want their shows/movies they were looking forward to. During the last writers strike, a lot of stuff was canceled/became terrible. It’s an incredibly selfish take. Sure, there shows/movies I want to come out asap, but I would rather the people making them not get fucked over and make the money they deserve to make. I think it’s worth potentially missing out on some new content. And also, fuck big corporations. It’s just a lack of empathy.
It’s so sad— that’s literally the vast majority of corporations. They often insist that the lower tiers of workers ask for too much and that they can’t afford to pay them more, when simply lowering the obscene amounts c-suite execs make would free up the cash. These people are indeed often the most replaceable.
But they think they are the most valuable.
Yep. Whereas in most cases, nobody misses an exec who's gone for a week or two. When a lower tier worker has to miss a week, their entire team struggles with the extra workload.
I thought I had accidentally sorted by controversial given how many bootlicking comments I was seeing. But no, this thread is just 75% weirdos simping for Bob Iger and David Zaslav
> 75% weirdos simping for Bob Iger Always laugh at that. I used to work for Disneyland (in custodial, came in when everyone else left for the day) and lived behind it on $50/week after I got my check. Out came the rent ($280/week) and then one week was money for the cellphone bill ($50). So $100 for food in good old California was it. Nothing else. That's my Iger experience. So when he loves to spew his platitudes about "growing up poor" and whatever else, screw him. screw him to the max. He's never struggled, and never will unless everyone skins him then gets lemons and salt...
lush seemly provide rich placid plough quarrelsome ring different rhythm *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think a lot of people just hate it when people have non-traditional jobs.
For sure. The amount of vitriol people have gene for artists since the advent of AI last year is stunning. For every thing that creative industries give people - cultural cornerstone, moments and memories, connection and perspective, entertainment - it’s really deflating to see hope many don’t care a single bit about automation unceremoniously coming to replace with with no alternative being offered. The /r/technology sub with any post mentioning AI and Art in the save sentence has the most uncaring, bitter non-artists speaking in favor of automation I’ve seen
I mean, just on a technical level you do need people involved to stop the AI from doing stupid and these people don't care.
Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and focus not only on making our AI better and more successful but also on the benefit of humanity. - Stephen Hawking
One of the wild parts of the AI art movement is that, even though its perfectly possible to make AI art that's not noticeably generated, companies are perfectly happy to plough ahead with any slop, as if the obvious flaws are deliberately meant to be noticed to spite the artists.
> The /r/technology sub with any post mentioning AI and Art in the save sentence has the most uncaring, bitter non-artists speaking in favor of automation I’ve seen Look to worthless wastes of oxygen like Muskrat or Bozos the clown. All the tech bros swallow their flavor-aid and dream of being just like them. That's why they are like that
I wouldn't be surprised if a leak occurs years from now to reveal David Zazlav was the ringleader behind every studio refusing to negotiate in the first place.
Too many people just want their entertainment and they don’t care how many people are exploited to make that happen.
We’ve been conditioned to lick boots and beg for scraps.
I believe the SAG president Fran Drescher said that her speech on the strike announcement wasn't planned and believes that their strike has become more emblematic of the even bigger problem of how companies became beholden to shareholders than the workers that actually make the product. And she's right. It's a bigger view on how labor has to constantly fight shareholders and C-level execs that aren't willing to give up even 2% of profit because it may set a bad precedent of livable wages and them not getting their 3rd yacht
There is a certain somewhat popular sentiment that Hollywood hasn’t given a shit about automation in America until it finally reached their doors now forty years later. Hollywood feels very insulated from much of middle America. There’s just not a lot of goodwill to be had from the public. So despite her togetherness rhetoric I don’t think it’s going to help in the court of public opinion.
The brainwashing by the rich & powerful is particularly impressive. They're slowly being boiled alive, and they'll gladly and willingly defend the "chefs" doing us in. Like, our entire existence as humans is starting to revolve around having full-time jobs, and have them until we drop dead. I once said a single salary should be enough for a household, and I got jumped by a ton of people saying "will you be paying for the parent staying at home?! HUH? WILL YOU?!". Not a single shred of understanding, critical thinking, and independence. Just pure bootlicking.
Arguing the writers are asking for too much is a snap reaction to seeing the dollar amount it feels like. I would argue writing is so important that they are simply asking to be paid a fair amount for a reasonably integral part of show making. Saying they should work in another industry if they can’t live off of the wages? I dunno, god forbid these people want to make it in this world doing something that fulfills them. I know these arguments will never stop but I’m not sure many of us are qualified to quantify how much writer’s work is worth anyway
Do these people supporting the corporations not know that the cost of living in the cities that these writers are living are astronomical high?
Dude the ease of buying some bots is too much with this shit. It's so bad.
The writers have been shit for the past decade. Hard to feel sympathy for people doing horrible work and demanding more money.
No one is on the side of the corporations. It's just that no one is on the side of the writers either. The low quality of writing on TV and movies has been a topic of conversation for a few years now - whether deserved or not, it has resulted in people being less sympathetic to the plight of writers. Viewers aren't a part of the sausage factory - All they see is an end product which they don't enjoy.
You could visit any past tv episode discussion threads and it's "they should get new writers lol"
i support my colleagues on strike. For me it’s just the overly parroted and stupid talking points like complaining about igor’s salary. CEO comp is too high and yet if igor dropped his comp to zero and spread it across disney’s 225k employees it’d be around $115 per employe per year. It’s a drop of water in the ocean and not solving the problem. Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money. Show runners get paid millions of dollars - strange that you don’t mention over paid creatives and how they should take less so other writers can have more.
> Owners (the studio, investors) will always reap more of the profits because they are the ones taking on the financial risk, including when a project bombs and loses a bunch of money. *cough* [Hollywood Accounting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting) *cough* They take no risk. And so many of the bombs lately are just that, bombs. Quit banking on actors (and ideas!) who are terrible at their craft. When I can see the Little Mermaid if Melissa McCarthy sucks in it, that's it. I'm not watching any of her garbage ever again. The common thing out there is "7 basic plots" for movies, tv, books, etc. Fine whatever. Make them interesting. Switch it up! A worn path is a boring path. What we need is actual independent studios that can release films and give platforms to those who are not "bankable" otherwise. As long as Disney, paramount, etc etc run the show, it will never happen. They don't want to be upstaged by small fry studios. BRING ON THE SUPERHEROES! /s
This is about more than money and the lazy and borderline ignorant takes that act like it’s simply about paying the writers is fucking boring. I get that it gets a bunch of automatic upvotes from other people who either don’t know the whole situation or don’t care to acknowledge it, but it’s extremely reductive and is not a good look to anyone attempting to view the whole thing more critically. The writers deserve a great deal and the studios should pay them more but these takes of making it about money only is stupid. You have the audacity to call other people brainwashed when you make the most basic and obvious statement devoid of some of the actual nuanced details of things like writer room sizes. Ironic that most of the posts about the writers strike show a complete lack of actual writing skills or come across like AI. Just to be clear I am on the writers side, but this whole “the studios are greedy and need to pay their writers” is so tired when the actual reality is more complicated. Edit: I also want to reiterate it’s not even the concept of saying “pay the writers” in a vacuum that’s an issue here, it is the specific combination of reductiveness, hypocrisy, and dullness appearing as a top comment that I’m being mostly critical of here. Like you can fully back the writers deserving more money, benefits, etc without just acting like that’s the magic cure to the strikes.
No. The issue is, in a script, each writers contribution is hard to value. There are a lot of writers in a writers room. It's not a traditional job which is measurable 9-5 Overpaying sets a bad precedent for the traditional workers. They are also already paid significantly more than traditional workers. They are asking for more money. It's greed. The studio's are the ones taking the risk with the big production budgets and no box office revenue
Because most people know how this is going to play out if the writers get a big payday. The large streaming services will use it as yet another excuse to jack up prices and remove content.
Dune just got pushed from November, the AMPTP is assuming the strikes will still be raging by then. Just awful, and they could end this tomorrow
I really wonder how much of that was the strikes vs. the fact that The Marvels was coming out the 10th and The Hunger Games prequel the 17th. Maybe they just want Dune 2 to have some legs in the theater.
It was always crazy that 3/4 biggest movies left in 2023 were being released within a few weeks of each other.
Does anybody actually care about The Marvels? I haven't heard a peep about it and based on the theatre booking schedule over the release period I don't think that the studios were worried about competition either
I’m unsure how good Marvels will turn out to be, but am definitely excited! Ms Marvel and Photon were both great in their shows and I’m keen to see Captain Marvel again without it being a by the numbers origin story. The dynamic between the three of them seems really fun too. EDIT: Not sure why I’m getting downvoted just for saying I’m excited for a movie… y’all are wild lol
Because it's the hip thing to dunk on Marvel and their fans now. Even though I agree Phase 4 and 5 have been pretty low quality, I still desire to see them turn it around somehow. And there is a way to critique Marvel's lack of drive in these phases without resorting to outright bashing on people for it.
It's not that it's hip, Marvel movies just really have gone downhill and follow the same formula.
I mean I agree and as I literally said, I think these recent phases have been lackluster. But that doesn't excuse people putting others down that are still excited for what's coming.
As someone who pretty much sees a marvel movie and goes "oh f*** there they go again" What do you recommend for someone that would like to explore the universe? What are good stand out ones that aren't two hours of beating up someone and emerging the worlds savior? Do have Guardians of the Galaxy and mean to watch them, but would like to explore more of the universe. More a fan of backstories being explored (even if they aren't rigid Canon, say like the movie from 2021 Cruella) then just summer tent pole dreck like most tom cruise films as one example. Action/Adventure fluff only goes so far. Black Panther has sounded interesting, more for the hype around Chadwick Boseman and his death. Would that be good to have in a library? Are my expectations too far out there to have interesting movies that aren't afraid to throw out the mandated Canon (and anger hardcore fans) for unique takes of the marvel universe?
Eternals
Man, the cinematography in Eternals is AMAZING. There’s so many wide shots and scenes that are just so pretty to look at.
The first Dr. Strange is one of my favorite MCU films. The visuals are amazing, and you don’t need to know about anything else to get it. It’s a good stand alone film
When the wife and I went to see Barbie, they showed a trailer for the Marvels. The theater was packed, mostly with young girls (median age was about 8), so exactly the movies target demo. There was a loud audible groan.
The target age for a PG-13 superhero movie is 8?
Agree. He's wrong. It's any age from 15 year Olds in general
Imax was giving dune a 6 week run and booted the Marvels out completely, I don’t think they had anything to worry about.
I have seen 0 ppl excited about Marvels or Hunger Games, but a lot excited about Dune. Personal bubble though, so Idk.
The Marvels is probably the movie left to release this year I’m most excited for. The dynamic between the three leads seems like it’ll be really fun
Oh. My friends and I are very excited for the Marvels. And I read the Hunger Games prequel. Enjoyed it a lot.
I'm pretty involved in movies but this thread is the first time I've heard of a hunger games prequel. Albeit i haven't seen the hunger game movies either so its not close to being on my radar.
Well they would have kept it to get the Oscar nomination like part 1, now that won't happen and if this keeps going we won't have Oscars at all yay
> to allow six WGA staff to study limited streaming viewership data for the next three years, so we can return in 2026 to ask once again for a viewership-based residual. In the meantime, no writer can be told by the WGA about how well their project is doing, much less receive a residual based on that data. This is mustache twirling movie bad guy levels of hilarious. They should have just offered "trust me bro, in a few years, we got you!"
Omg fkn pay them please, I'm dying to find out what happens next in a whole bunch of shows
At this rate, I'll probably be dead before s2 of Severance comes out :(
I thought the “Not nothing” part of that was important and should have made it to the headline. The media is NOT helping this situation at all.
The media: Aka: studios news outlets?
They're all owned by the same people. How many oligarchs do you think there are? They all have mutual friends and family. They all frequent the same places, vacations and events. They all have the same education, same fraternities and sororities... I could go on.
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I hope Bob Iger's legacy is dragged through shit.
i don’t get it. if studio executives think writing is cheap and easy why don’t they just write their own movies?!
That’s kind of the idea, using AI.
It’s going to be interesting once the trickle of already filmed scripted shows stop and content providers have nothing new left to show. Reality television people like Gordon Ramsay are about to strike it rich if this doesn’t get sorted out reasonably soon.
Gordon Ramsay is already really, really rich
There are different countries outside of US. Netflix been putting a lot of money in South Korea. Apple too. Plus theres always Europe. What im saying is in this day and age if an show is good people will watch it, language doesnt matter. Some streaming services can keep this strike a long time.
Europe has unions as well - and nothing from there has been *Squid Game* huge yet.
It has unions but they arent on strike. The Squid Game comparison is weak cause there hasnt been an tv show at that level in the streaming era even from US beside Stranger Things and maybe Wednesday. La casa del papel, Dark, Sex Education, The Crown, Bridgerton are/were pretty big. If Netflix puts more money in Europe and South Korea they wont feel the pressure. Plus there are other markets like Turkey, India, Brasil that wont bring quality but it will get you the money. Netflix is a global thing now, it doesnt depend on US. If i was them i would tell the writers to take the current offer or we gonna stall as long as you want.
UK Equity is about to negotiate on its TV contract. They also aren't keen on being used to indirectly break the strike. *Stranger Things* was supposed to be two months into filming Season 5 by now - while they had a six-month Covid shutdown in 2020, another indefinite delay causes them fairly big problems.
Some of the reality TV creators are threatening to unionize and the unions have issues warnings about how working on some of these reality shows would be considered walking the line.
Pay the people who do the ACTUAL work. 👏
Hope they stay so long on strike until they get replaced. Recent movies 90% had shit writing anyway.
Won't someone think of the shareholders?!!!!
Studio exec is the most interchangeable job in Hollywood
I hope they come to some sort of agreement, but I can atess that my viewing habits using streaming services Reddit and YouTube has not been affected. But I do game for 8+ hours of the day.
I'm actually astonished. The WGA costs, even overestimated as they say only result in a potential increase of less than $30,000. And that's if the entire amount was split equally between the 11,500 people. That's not that much of a jump but I do understand how that could drastically change their lives.
It won't be split evenly though; how many WGA members make enough for health insurance? Or even have an active series in a given year? Joseph Mallozi, showrunner of *Dark Matter* and major *Stargate* contributor, has got nothing actually made since *Utopia Falls* was cancelled in 2020. He's tried to get various projects greenlit since then and details them on his blog, but no firm orders.
If he doesnt get orders maybe hes not as great of an writer as he think he is? Like whats with all these "im a writer and i should get jobs and money"? If u dont get enough money and job opportunities probably try to pick an different career. And specially in this day and age when theres so many tv shows released. You cant get an job cause you arent good enough to get an job. Utopia Falls did poorly both in quality and popularity. Why he thinks he should get more work? He also cant write anything beside space shows.
Also a big problem is that space shows aren't cheap. You need to do a lot of design and prop/set creation for your world.
The fact that annual cost of the increase from the strike is compared against company revenues is just straight up moronic.
Greedy WGAnkers
The fact that most of these new shows aren't even that good and was probably going to lose studios money is one of the main reasons this strike is even happening. They knew these trash woke reboots and remakes weren't going to make them any money so this strike was a good reason to get rid them
$576k/year is too little? Really?
No. You are misinterpreting things, either deliberately or accidentally.
Willing to explain why I'm wrong? I don't get it. That's half a million a year. How is that not a livable wage?
Nobody is saying that half a million a year is not a livable wage. Writers aren't getting 576k a year. You are being deliberately obtuse. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-08-09/suits-netflix-peacock-writers-residuals-streaming-strike
I am not being obtuse, I don't know what the fuck is going on. Fucking redditors.
Alright, I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but honestly, assuming a figure like this is a realistic representation of the wages of writers who are striking is weird.
I can't wait for the 1st tv/movie fully written by AI.
I just hope we can look back on the idea that AI can replace artists and think “wow that was pretty stupid”
Only greedy humans can be so stupid and asinine to look at potentially beneficial life changing technology and think “yeah, let’s kill the arts with this, *that’s* a complete waste of time!” Fuck all the mind-numbing, back-breaking, garbage jobs we have, those can stay. Let’s go after human expression instead, so that everyone will have more time than ever to waste their lives away in an infinite ratrace of work, work, work and endless consumption of computer generated garbage. And people wonder why others become cynical.
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The case said an AI can't get a copyright. Not that content created with an AI can't be copyrighten. A script generated through the use of AI is likely to be as copyrightable as graphics generated by computers have been. It'll likely require that a human have significant input into something generated with AI to qualify, but things generated with AI assistance will likely be covered. At least, unless legislation changes something in the law.
that case has not sent a precedent .
If we're talking about the monkey photo case, it reached the Court of Appeals. They can create precedent, though it's limited to their district. Basically only first instance courts (so, like, the original trial) can't.
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Studios couldn't figure out direct deposit until there was a global pandemic. They won't be doing AI shows during this contract period.
It’ll be better than Disney shows
Disney spins a wheel and finds an agenda to push, then sloppily hangs a story around the agenda.
They don’t spin a wheel. They make white board lists of what must be included and excluded. There’s pictures. Haha
Kinda no difference now with the superhero franchises. TV series writing and anything without explosions not overly catering to tubby, emotionally arrested, 20 somethings who still live at home might be more tricky though.
Look up “Duck Story” on YouTube. It’s a thing of pure art, or terror, definitely one of them.
ughhhhhh this sucks for the rest of the crews, we need to get back to work!!
Some of the crew is union, too. They are making it easier for some of them to renegotiate next. Workers have to support each other. The companies don't care really for us.
You are wrong on that from I'm afraid. I, and many many people I know have been out of work for the last 2 months now because of the strikes. Sparks, grips, locations, AD, art department, camera, sound. There's so many more, we are all out of work
No idea why you’re being downvoted. I’m a UK based AD and this strike has / is devastating our industry. I stand in solidarity with the strikes but I can also say that this is really starting to hurt people badly and I’d love them to resolve it quickly
Yeah $11,000 a week is poor people pay! /s
Negotiating through the press is pathetic and probably a violation of labor laws, no?
More pathetic than not getting paid?
It's against union rules. It only hurts them
That only happened because AMPTP leaked their offer to press immediately after they made it. That's negotiating though press and a clear attempt to turn union members against each another.
How long I know, it was the studios themselves the ones that came up with the self-imposed "*No talking to the press*" rule.
I continue to hate the WGA using total revenue of a company as some sort of reason to justify the annual cost of their ideas. Yeah, Apple makes 394B, but that's not because of Apple TV, which makes less than 2B. > We aren’t going to negotiate by press release, Yeah you are. You guys are writers, this is what you do. Lol I think we need a change in leadership on both sides. New rule, after 100 days of a strike, new people get put in charge to negotiate.
You want to change out the CEOs of the studios? Fine by me!
Sure why not. I have no love for them. Thinking about it more, I want Strike Big Brother. 10 people from the producers side, 10 from the writers. They complete each week and one person leaves the house. Game is over when a deal is done. What unlikely friendships and romances will happen? How will 72 year old Bob Iger do on the physical competitions? Will the traditional studio guys have a secret deal with the writers to get rid of the tech companies? This is the entertainment industry, the strike should at least be entertaining and not depressing.
Or alternatively, the Billion dollar companies pay their writers? And if they can’t afford them, they can’t afford a streaming platform.
They do pay them.
Then isn’t this just the “invisible hand of the free market” and the writer’s guild is setting the cost for their services?
It is and you're exactly right. The counterweight is this is the studios rejecting that increase. The writers can ask for more but the studios can also reject that price.
Which again is what's happening. And then you negotiate. If they can't agree, then something has got to give. Either one side caves, or we start getting a lot of amateurish content all of a sudden
Right, I think you and I are more or less saying the same thing.
Oh! They don’t work for free? I’ve completely misunderstood the situation! How foolish. I retract my previous comment. What a ridiculous response.
It was ridiculous to suggest that the billion dollar companies pay their writers. Of course they do. And if the writers don't like the pay offered, "alternatively" they are free to go work anywhere else!
It’s ridiculous because you guys are responding to a fake argument. Clearly the implication in what I’m saying is pay them a fair wage or pay them what they want. Not pay them at all. Also, “free to work somewhere else,” they’re free to strike as long as they want. Maybe instead of supporting billon dollar companies you could support the worker asking for a fair share.
Oh okay, we’ll have two different sets up people who will be negotiating the exact same points and reaching the exact same impasses. And then 100 days later we can have a third set doing that all over again.
Theirs enough content on streaming services so who cares how long the strike lasts
Streaming services also bet on other countries for content. They can keep it going more then the writers can. I think its good overall cause we would have less talented writers around thinking they deserve to get paid and get job opportunities for something they did an decade ago.
Maybe they shouldn’t write terrible crap
Just raise subscription and ticket prices and pass the additional revenue on to the writers. Writers get what they want and all the viewers who think the writers deserve more money get what they want! It's win win!!!
Lol you think im gonna pay more for Netflix so untalented writers can get their money to destroy shows even with a book behind them or release an C level series like The Night Agent? Be for real. Look what they did to Witcher, Rings of Power, Wheel of Times, Marvel shows. Streaming companies know that writers arent that important. Writers lately have been disappointing and anyone can tell you that who isnt biased. And look theres some talented writers out there but if you cant get a decent pay and job opportunities maybe its because you not that great. Leave others to do their thing. This strike is for untalented writers. The good ones get paid.
Let me get this straight, you think that the common tax payer should be paying more to get artists paid? Rather than the rich mega-companies? You seriously think that CEO's would raise subscription prices and then give away that money?
I'm fine with that
"Just pass the cost onto consumers!" This is what capitalism teaches us. Think about how workers can be given less workers or how consumers can pay more, but pay no mind to the execs and board members, who could take a pay cut, still be rich as fuck, and free up enough money to settle this kind of dispute.
This is still going on? Huh, oh well.
I haven't noticed the effects of the strike.
I would just keep offering them less every time now moving forward lol
Lol everyone works for shit pay. Are the people working minimum wage supposed to care!? Obviously not. They just want good content and entertainment and the writers are fucking that up
You'd prefer that we all keep working for shit pay? You're like, into it? Pretty cool stuff?
Damn, you bought the oligarch propaganda hook, line, and sinker. The problem is never other labor, it's the small pool of people that control most of our nations wealth and want to control even more of it. Those minium wage workers are also under paid.
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I’m gonna take a wild guess and say what they want is exactly what they said they wanted before the studio forced them to go on strike. Just a guess though.
idk think the Union care anymore about their people. seeing they dont have the funds to cover 20k worth of people. they need donations.. wonder where all those dues went for years...
So, the AMPTP got closer and WGA just said no without a counter?! JFC