I am surprised to do a search online and really not be able to find a whole lot of details with regards to this upcoming strike from the Writer’s Guild that has Hollywood studios scrambling to get films greenlit and underway as the contract with the Guild expires at the end of October. A strike is expected anytime from November 1st to June 2008, the latter of which coincides with the contract for the Screen Actors Guild going up for renewal.
Today at the junket for Reservation Road, writer/director Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) revealed to us that he is at the center of negotiations and gave us complete insight as to what is really going on and when we might expect a strike. Typically in this case I would try and break it down for you and lead you along the way, but he doesn’t need any of that, here is how the conversation went:
Do you have any feelings with regard to the strike in Hollywood?
TG: I’m at the heart of it; I am on the negotiating committee of the Writer’s Guild. If you look at the circumstance, here is what the studios are saying at this minute. They are saying, “Look, this is an antiquated system here and we want to take away – we want to revisit the residual situation.” The residuals are basically what most actors and most writers live off. That little bit of money that you get back. They say they want to go to a profit-based distribution system. I still get statements for Hotel Rwanda, which basically says we’re $20 million in the red and from In the Name of the Father that says we’re $16 million in the red. Hollywood bookkeeping is beyond mafia bookkeeping, so the notion that writers and actors should wait until they have declared there is a profit is ridiculous and it is a smoke screen to take away from what this is all about, which is the whole industry is moving over to the Internet and the new media and all we are saying is give us our little piece of that and we’d be very happy with it.
I don’t know if they think they can bust the Writer’s Guild or bust the whole industry and make a change here, but we ain’t going for it. We aren’t asking for a lot, we are asking for a portion of this, and they have been trying over the last couple of years with reality TV shows and non-union writers to just chip away at all that there.
My mood and the mood of some of the Guild is let’s not wait for June, because they all think we are going to wait for June 30th and wait for the actors to come out and by then they will have stock-piled 200 films and by then it will be de facto strike anyway. I’m all for going as soon as we can and let’s get it out there and see.
Given the level of profit that’s being made now, to say that the writers and the actors shouldn’t have a piece of that is ludicrous.
What advice would you give upcoming screenwriters?
TG: Write something, get the camera, get it done and put it on YouTube. Don’t write a script and send it to CAA hoping they’ll pick it up, they won’t even recycle the page. The opportunity for young writers, directors and all that, we’re at the gold rush stage of the industry. There is a whole medium out there were – what’s the comedian that put the skit on with his agent’s daughter? Will Ferrell, 13 million hits? You charge 10 cents and you just made $1.3 million. The drag now is that the studios are trying to capture that whole outlet and find ways to make it pay. That’s part of the writer’s thing.
What’s the likelihood of an early strike?
TG: It depends, there’s been nothing offered, there’s been no ability to talk at the minute. They haven’t been able to come up with anything on a discussion that you can sit down and have a conversation about. The last time they just read out this thing about revisiting the residuals. I mean, what the fuck?
We’re going to vote on an authorization to strike and the whole membership will give the committee to call a strike and I think it will be almost unanimous.
The end of October is what they are looking at right?
TG: Well that’s when the contract ends. The media at the minute talks about dates like it will be November 1st or June 30th. We’re not calling this based on a date that everyone decides for us. We’re going to look at the most strategy time if they’re not willing to negotiate and make that move then or go to the membership and say, “Look, this is basically an attempt to destroy this union,” which I think it is, or to weaken everyone to the point where we do a deal on the whole future of the industry that will put you back to being a sort of version of shop assistant.
What would be the reason you wouldn’t strike right now? Are there opposing factors?
TG: Well, you’ve got to see where they’re going. The sense I get from the membership is total solidarity, and from the actors as well. I’m not sure about the directors, but there is definitely a solidarity about this. They obviously have tactics they are lining up to deal with this, they have already banked a lot of stuff, but it seems enormously greedy with what they are doing at the minute.
We had this situation when the DVDs first came in. They went to the unions, in the wake of a strike before that was very acrimonious, oh here’s the DVDs and they cost $80 and it’s new technology so why trust this until it evolves into something else? We’re going to do this little deal until we investigate it, which was so ridiculous, it was like .5 of a percent or something. Then boom, the DVD becomes this big thing… Hotel Rwanda made $23 million at the box-office and $48 million on DVD, and writers and actors were completely excluded from that profit. So I suppose it is easy for me since I made some films and money, but there are a lot of writers who are on a dodgy enough budget and we might have to wait six months until the actors come along or whatever, but who knows, it just depends.
You can certainly see where he and the Writer’s Guild is coming from considering everything he mentioned and I think we all know the bookkeeping in Hollywood is not exactly on the up-and-up, just ask Peter Jackson who is knee deep in a legal battle with New Line Cinema regarding the accounting surrounding the DVD release of Fellowship of the Ring, and has been for quite some time.
If a strike were to occur starting November 1st it is hard to tell exactly what kind of impact it would have on the industry. It would obviously be a major blow, but could these negotiations ultimately dismantle the Guild, would some writers jump ship? Would the WGA have to wait for the actors to potentially strike in June before any real effect was noticed?
While questions still remain, it is finally nice to get a real voice behind the goings on and I was happy to hear Terry George so forthcoming with information that seemed to have been suppressed up to this point.
