After an almost 150-day strike, Hollywood writers and studios have reportedly reached a tentative agreement.
According to a statement by the Writers Guild of America, union leaders “voted unanimously to lift the restraining order and end the strike as of 12:01 am PT/3:01 am ET on Wednesday, 27 September.”
The deal brokered between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers – which includes studios such as Disney, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery – includes a 5% minimum pay increase with consecutive bumps of 4% and 3.5% to be instituted on 2 May 2024 and 5 May 2025.
Further to the hotly sought-after pay increases, writers are equipped with significant protections against the use of artificial intelligence. As specified in the contract, AI cannot be utilised write or rewrite literary material and no AI-generated material will be considered source material.
Residuals from streaming sites were a major bone of contention during the negotiations, but the WGA has secured a new residual based on viewership: high budget subscription video on demand series and films that are viewed by 20% or more of the service’s domestic subscribers in the first 90 days of release get a bonus equal to 50% of the fixed domestic and foreign residual. Views are calculated by hours streamed domestically of the season or film divided by the runtime.
The conclusion of the WGA strike yields good news for daytime talk shows and live studio productions; production on these programmes could resume production as soon as the end of the month.
Our favourite scripted shows may take a while longer to return to our screens; the ongoing Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike has yet to reach a conclusion, and should only do so once the freshly-brokered WGA contract has been finalised.