According to Deadline, that’s the reason Hollywood’s studios haven’t begun negotiations with the screenwriters, despite being 70 days into a s strike: they plan to break the union by refusing to negotiate at all until writers’ money runs out. Wall Street, Deadline says, is thrilled with the idea of less money to workers and more flowing to investors.
Now the Screen Actors Guild has gone out on strike too. Will that make a difference? I don’t know.
I’m with the actors and writers of course. While I don’t have links handy, I’ve read plenty about how the streaming era has changed things: residuals for reruns no longer make sense, a season on a hit show may only last 10 episodes and creatives’ share of the streaming profits is way small.
Will the studios hold out? Can the strikers last? No idea. From my perspective this changes little: there’s so much good new stuff, foreign stuff, rerun stuff I haven’t seen, plus things I could rewatch that if there was no 2023-4 TV season it wouldn’t matter. Does that mean studios can afford to wait out the writers and actors? I sure hope not.
