No piece about Hollywood's keyboard hammerers is complete without disinterment of that ancient joke about the starlet who was so stupid she slept with the writer. There are truths in there. Successive strikes by the Writers Guild of America have, however, undermined the gag's cynical message just a little. A few years ago, Daniel Craig came close to blaming the 2007 WGA strike for the awfulness of Bond film Quantum of Solace.
"On Quantum, we were f**ked," he said with typical Cheshire frankness. "We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers' strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn't employ a writer to finish it."
Craig went on to explain that he ended up writing some of his own scenes. “And a writer I am not.”
Ten years later, the WGA has prepared the ground for another stoppage. On Monday, by an overwhelming margin, the union voted to give their leaders authority to strike if no satisfactory agreement is reached with the producers. There is a slippery connection between the concerns that triggered the 2007 dispute and the issues under discussion this week. Back then, writers were just beginning to grapple with the demands of new online media. Agreements reached in the VHS era were looking sorely out of date.
The subsequent rise of streaming services and the continuing strength of cable networks has altered the TV business in unexpected ways. Most significantly, the old US pattern of sprawling 22-episode runs has broken down. American TV now more often follows the British pattern of shorter series lasting between eight and 12 episodes. Certain contracts forbid writers from working on other shows in the longer hiatuses. The WGA argues that this has resulted in an average decline in income (although the figures are disputed). Also at issue is an endangered health plan that is facing deficits of $145 million in the next three years.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, representing the industry, issued a placatory statement. “The companies are committed to reaching a deal at the bargaining table that keeps the industry working,” it read. “The 2007 Writers Strike hurt everyone. Writers lost more than $287 million in compensation that was never recovered, deals were cancelled, and many writers took out strike loans to make ends meet. We remain focused on our objective of reaching a deal.”
The feeling is that the writers have more leverage this time. In 2007, punters were still swimming through reality television's first wave. Endless such shows could be called up as writerless replacements for cancelled drama and comedy. Used to less variety, audiences were also a little more tolerant of repeats. Now, prestige shows such as Big Little Lies or The Handmaid's Tale are flogged as relentlessly as Oscar-contending movies once were.
Nonetheless a strike is a real possibility if agreement is not reached by May 1st. The first observable effect – of little impact on this side of the Atlantic – would be the cancellation of late-night comedy shows such as the inexplicably lauded Saturday Night Live. Chat shows such as Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, which rely on WGA members for jokes and monologues, will also have to adapt.
A more serious worry would be the curtailment of upcoming dramatic shows. Fans of Game of Thrones will be happy to hear that series seven is in the can, but any lengthy strike could delay the eighth and final season. The many Irish personnel will be viewing the negotiations with interest.
The strike could cause difficulties for CBS's latest Star Trek incarnation. Star Trek: Discovery has already been much postponed (the excellent The Good Fight, a Good Wife spin-off, stepped into one proposed timeslot) and, now shooting for a proposed early autumn premiere, it looks worryingly vulnerable to WGA action. New series of The Waking Dead and American Horror Show also find themselves travelling on uncertain ground.
Mind you, last time around, one show weathered such inconveniences to become a classic. It was the writers strike that cut the first season of Breaking Bad from nine episodes to a conspicuously brief seven.
The effect on cinema will be less immediate and less easy to assess. Mainstream movies take forever to produce and such delays are, thus, much more commonplace. In 2007, such films as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and X-Men Origins: Wolverine endured last-minute rewrites to beat the deadline threatened by looming industrial action. Who can tell if the films would have been any less awful if they'd had been written to the usual schedules?
What really panicked the movie business that year was the potential cancellation of the Oscars. The Golden Globe ceremony was, indeed, axed, but agreement was reached just in time for the bigger bash to proceed. The current dispute is, happily for the Academy, looming a whole 10 months before the 2018 Oscars. Nobody thinks the bust-up will last that long.
