Union leaders and Hollywood studios reached a tentative agreement Sunday to end a historic screenwriters’ strike after nearly five months, although no deal is yet in the works for striking actors.
The Writers Guild of America announced the agreement in a statement.
The three-year contract agreement — reached after five marathon days of renewed negotiations between Writers Guild of America negotiators and an alliance of studios, streaming services and production companies — must be approved by the board of directors and guild members before the strike officially ends.
Terms of the deal were not immediately announced. The agreement in principle to end the last writers’ strike, in 2008, was approved by more than 90% of members.
Thanks to this agreement, nightly broadcasts on the network, including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon from NBC and Jimmy Kimmel Live! could return to the air within a few days.
Far from a return to normal
As writers prepare to potentially open their laptops again, things are far from back to normal in Hollywood, as talks have yet to resume between the studios and striking actors. Members of the film crews who found themselves out of work following the shutdown will remain unemployed for the time being.
The proposed solution to the writers’ strike comes after negotiations resumed Wednesday for the first time in a month. Executives such as Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros.’ David Zaslav. Discovery and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley were reportedly directly involved in the negotiations.
About 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America walked off the job May 2 over concerns about pay, the size of the shows’ writing staff and the use of artificial intelligence in creating storylines. The actors, who joined the writers on strike in July, have their own demands, but there have not yet been discussions about resuming negotiations with their union.
The writers’ strike immediately paused late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Liveand has since sent dozens of scripted shows and other productions into limbo, including the next seasons of Stranger Things from Netflix, The Last of Us from HBO, and Abbot Elementary from ABC, as well as films like Deadpool 3 And Superman: Legacy. The Emmy Awards were also postponed from September to January.
More recently, writers have targeted talk shows that skirted strike rules to return to the air, including The Drew Barrymore Show, Real Time With Bill Maher And The Talk. All have turned around in the face of picketing and pressure, but they should return quickly.
Pivotal moment
The combined strikes were a pivotal moment in Hollywood, as creative workers took on the leaders of an industry transformed and torn apart by technology, from the seismic shift toward streaming in recent years to the potentially revolutionary emergence of artificial intelligence in the years to come.
Screenwriters had traditionally struck more than any other sector of the industry, but had enjoyed a relatively long period of industrial peace, until spring negotiations for a new contract broke down. This is the first walkout since 2007 and the longest since 1988.
On July 14, after more than two months on strike, writers were joined by 65,000 film and television actors on strike.
It was the first time the two groups had struck together since 1960. In that walkout, the writers’ strike began first and ended second. This time, the studios chose to deal first with the writers.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents employers in the negotiations, was the first to propose resuming negotiations in August. The meetings were short, infrequent and unproductive, and discussions remained silent for another month.