While NBC still hasn’t made it official whether the Golden Globes will air or not, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) President Alan Rosenberg made the following statement on Friday, saying that no actors are expected to show up because of the Writers Guild’s picket lines to be set up at the awards. He also comments on the late night talk shows:
After considerable outreach to Golden Globe actor nominees and their representatives over the past several weeks, there appears to be unanimous agreement that these actors will not cross WGA picket lines to appear on the Golden Globe Awards as acceptors or presenters. We applaud our members for this remarkable show of solidarity for striking Writers Guild of America writers.
We have also been asked about our position regarding network talk shows. We urge our members to appear on the two programs that have independent agreements with the WGA, The Late Show with David Letterman and Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. However, actors who are asked to appear on the struck network talk shows will have to cross WGA picket lines, creating the same situation that has led to the consensus among actors to skip the Golden Globes.
As I have said since this strike began on November 5th, we must stand united with our brothers and sisters at the WGA.
Writers Guild of America, West President Patric M. Verrone followed with a note thanking SAG’s support:
We are grateful to our brothers and sisters in SAG for their continued solidarity and support. The entire awards show season is being put in jeopardy by the intransigence of a few big media corporations. We urge the conglomerates to return to the bargaining table they abandoned and negotiate a fair and reasonable deal with writers to put this town back to work.
Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) President Jorge Camara says the HFPA is in a bind:
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has been placed in an extremely difficult position with the ongoing Writers Guild strike. We are making every effort to work out a solution that will permit the Golden Globes to take place with the creative community present to participate. We hope to announce a resolution to this unfortunate predicament on Monday.
In related news, The Hollywood Reporter says that Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner’s United Artists is making an independent deal with the WGA, much like David Letterman’s production company, Worldwide Pants did:
The WGA recently signed such a deal with David Letterman’s production company, allowing writers of his late-night talk show to get back to work. A deal with UA would be notable because it would represent a first film company deal and allow UA to get cracking on new script development and execute any necessary rewrites on active projects.
Stay tuned for possibly more on that development.
