The Strike Zone: The latest news, blogs & photos on the WGA strike
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• BLOG: Strike updates
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• QUESTION: Was the strike worth it?
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• Issues: What's it all about?
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• Graphic: Fees and residuals
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February 12, 2008
Private overtures led to strike breakthrough
Studio executives and leaders of the Writers Guild of America were barely on speaking terms a month ago when John Bowman took matters into his own hands.
February 11, 2008
STRIKE REPORT
Studio chiefs act as peacemakers
Months of sporadic talks with the Writers Guild of America had been fruitless.
February 11, 2008
Writers Guild board approves tentative contract
Movie and television writers began casting their ballots Sunday on whether to end their 3-month-old strike, a vote that is likely to send the entertainment industry back to work Wednesday.
February 8, 2008
Hollywood focuses on fast end to long strike
Hollywood could be back on its feet as early as Monday.
February 5, 2008
STRIKE REPORT
Guild board favors deal, with caution
The West Coast board of the Writers Guild of America has reacted favorably to the outlines of a pending agreement reached between guild negotiators and Hollywood studios. But the board is holding off on giving its blessing until it sees the exact language in the contract, according to people familiar with the situation.
January 23, 2008
STRIKE REPORT
Writers relent on 2 key demands
Hollywood's striking writers, signaling a possible thaw in the 3-month-old labor dispute, have agreed to drop two demands that studios have long viewed as non-starters.
6:03 PM PST, January 22, 2008
SCRIPTLAND
'Pest Control' can't be exterminated
You can't throw a skim latte in L.A. without hitting a writer who has a screenplay that's been stuck in the system since grunge was breaking. But there are very few who can say that in the intervening years they've turned the same story into a well-reviewed novel, a German radio play and a potential Broadway musical.
5:41 PM PST, January 21, 2008
THE BIG PICTURE
Do the right thing, WGA
To: Writers Guild of America, West President Patric Verrone
4:41 PM PST, January 20, 2008
CHANNEL ISLAND
The strike aside, hit shows are still missing
WHEN NBC's Golden Globes telecast devolved into a fiasco earlier this month, with ratings skidding more than 70%, it seemed to hammer home the conventional wisdom about the writers strike.
January 18, 2008
Joel Stein: Into the golden void
Sure, as a member of the Writers Guild, I feel awful about all the camera operators, editors and grips out of work because of our strike. But when it shut down the Golden Globes, I wondered if we hadn't brought too much hurt to America. Weighed down with guilt, I decided to do what I could to brighten up the pathetic substitute news conference. I was going to don a tuxedo, roll up in a fly car with a swanky date and whip out a bottle of champagne as the winners were announced.
January 11, 2008
Hollywood's Global meltdown
At the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Tuesday, quiet tension replaced the buoyant anticipation that usually precedes the Golden Globes. There were no guests checking in, but a team of front-desk clerks tried to look busy anyway. Somewhere in the building, though, phones were ringing. Out-of-towners who'd booked the Hilton's two-day "Golden Globes package," which included red-carpet bleacher seats and spa visits, were calling. Some were still making the trip to Hollywood. Many more wanted refunds.
4:45 PM PST, January 11, 2008
THE BIZ
Rating the strike's maybe mediators
Intrepid reporter Nikki Finke blasted the news from her Deadline Hollywood Daily blog early Friday morning: Clooney is coming! Clooney is coming!
January 10, 2008
Directors Guild talks intensifying
The lead negotiators for the Directors Guild of America are scheduled to meet today and discuss opening formal negotiations with the studios for a new contract.
January 6, 2008
Writers Guild is close to a deal with UA
United Artists, the independent production unit of MGM controlled by actor Tom Cruise and his producer partner, Paula Wagner, is expected to become the first movie company to reach an interim agreement with the Writers Guild of America, enabling the recent start-up to hire union writers despite the continuing strike.
January 8, 2008
AWARDS
NBC pulls plug on Golden Globes broadcast
Hollywood's awards season locomotive was derailed Monday when NBC pulled the plug on its highly rated Golden Globes, choosing not to broadcast on Sunday what promised to be a virtually celebrity-free ceremony.
January 4, 2008
STRIKE REPORT
Guild, NBC at odds over whether Leno crossed line
"Tonight Show" host Jay Leno's on-air declaration that he wrote his own jokes for his program triggered a thorny dispute Thursday about what the late-night hosts can and can't do during the continuing writers strike.
December 25, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Writers have a lot riding on a director
Long before he became a lead negotiator for the Directors Guild of America, Gilbert Cates honed his skills as a fencer.
December 20, 2007
Writers initiate separate talks
With no talks scheduled with Hollywood's major studios, the Writers Guild of America has begun negotiating with several small independent television and movie production companies on new employment agreements, John Bowman, the union's chief negotiator, told reporters Wednesday after a news conference. Some deals may be announced as early as next week, he predicted.
December 18, 2007
Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien to return to the air Jan. 2
On a day when NBC's Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien dealt a blow to striking film and television writers by announcing that they would cross the picket line to go back on the air -- and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel prepared to do the same -- the Writers Guild of America flexed its own muscles by denying waivers to the producers of the Golden Globes and the Oscars.
December 17, 2007
CHANNEL ISLAND
Working for reality TV? Sorry
PREDICTIONS often come back to haunt the predictor, but this column will go out on a limb anyway: Chances are slim to none that the Writers Guild of America will make good on its vow to organize large numbers of reality-show workers as a result of its current strike.
December 17, 2007
Striking writers in talks to launch Web start-ups
Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.
December 14, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Writers file labor charge against studios
Hollywood's bitter labor dispute intensified Thursday when striking writers filed a charge against the studios, alleging they had not bargained in good faith.
4:02 PM PST, December 11, 2007
CHANNEL ISLAND
CHANNEL ISLAND: TV critics tour is a strike casualty
The writers' strike has claimed another victim: the TV press tour slated to begin early next month.
December 12, 2007
Writers union feeling the heat
The Writers Guild of America is under new and mounting pressure from its ranks to get back to the bargaining table.
December 11, 2007
THE BIG PICTURE
THE BIG PICTURE: In the strike, the studios are playing to win
DESPITE what they say about global warming, it's going to be a long, cold winter for the writers of Hollywood. The studios pretty much made it official Friday, when they walked away from the negotiating table after giving the Writers Guild an abrupt "put up or shut up" ultimatum. Considering that the studios were asking the writers to give up much of their core Internet residuals proposal, there was little left to negotiate.
December 8, 2007
Writers, studios break off talks
Talks between Hollywood writers and studios collapsed Friday, dashing hopes of an imminent resolution to a 5-week-old strike that has upended the entertainment industry.
December 6, 2007
Late-night hosts give their staffs a hand
NEW YORK -- Count Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert among the late-night hosts looking out for their sidelined crews during the writers strike.
December 6, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Studios bring in PR doctors
Seeking to shore up its flagging public image, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has retained a consulting firm known for creating controversies in media and politics on behalf of well-heeled clients.
December 6, 2007
Helping their fellow writers
As the writers strike continues, celebrities across the entertainment industry, most of whom can afford many months without a paycheck, are offering help, some secretly, to the others who live hand-to-mouth.
December 5, 2007
SCRIPTLAND
SCRIPTLAND: Writers finding solace, stories on picket lines
As the Writers Guild tries to fortify itself against the inevitable slow bleed of numbers and commitment among its membership in its fifth week of striking, many gung-ho writers continue to find novel ways of surviving the monotony and social awkwardness of the picket lines.
December 3, 2007
CHANNEL ISLAND
Strike puts TV critics press tour in limbo
NEXT month, reporters and TV critics from all over the nation are supposed to converge on the Hilton Universal City to get the skinny on the latest shows. Top talent and executives are scheduled to turn up for press conferences and lavish parties hosted by some of the industry's biggest guns.
December 1, 2007
Hey, that ad-lib wasn't in the script!
Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole had been riding all day, chasing bad guys across the chaparral in the western "Appaloosa." As actors Viggo Mortensen (who was playing Hitch) and Ed Harris (Cole) sat around a campfire filming a scene on the Galisteo, N.M., set, Mortensen improvised a line. "I'm about ready," he grumbled, "to make a pair of chaps out of that Godforsaken mule."
November 23, 2007
CHANNEL ISLAND
Show runners run the show
WHEN the dust settles on the strike of '07 -- now 19 days old -- we'll probably see it as a Hollywood turning point. No, not in the history of the Writers Guild of America, or of the studios and networks. It's a critical and historic shift for TV show runners.
November 21, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Writers strike could cost $21.3 million a day
As thousands of TV and film writers marched along Hollywood Boulevard in the third week of their strike, film officials put a price tag on the potential economic toll of the walkout. Los Angeles' economy will lose more than $20 million a day in direct production spending if the writers strike extends into next month, according to FilmL.A. Inc., the nonprofit group that handles film permits and promotes the industry.
November 19, 2007
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
What's making writers and studios so nervous
Damon Lindelof got a sobering glimpse of his future as a television writer two years ago as he strolled through the Grove shopping plaza in Los Angeles.
November 17, 2007
Group prays for an end to writers strike
The ballroom of the Beverly Hilton hotel was the scene of a different kind of Hollywood power breakfast Friday morning, with nearly 700 people praying.
7:15 PM PST, November 16, 2007
Writers, studios to resume talks, sources say
Hollywood's film and TV writers and major studios have agreed to go back to the negotiating table on Nov. 26 in hopes of ending a bruising strike that began two weeks ago, according to two people familiar with the matter.
November 17, 2007
ENTERTAINMENT
Web series' timing is prime
The money, ambition and Hollywood pedigrees behind the Web-only dramatic video series "Quarterlife" brought the effort accolades even before its debut this month.
November 15, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Directors uncertain about their contract talks
As film and TV writers are walking the picket line, the directors who bring their scripts to life are walking their own fine line.
November 15, 2007
Strike's effects ripple beyond studio gates
For years, Television & Cinema Wardrobe Cleaners has lived by its motto: "We do nothing but showbiz!"
November 14, 2007
Poll shows support for writers
Hollywood's striking film and TV writers appear to have won the first round in the battle for public opinion.
November 14, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Writers bring their drama to Wall Street
Striking TV and movie writers chose Wall Street as a symbolic backdrop Tuesday for their demand for a bigger slice of the new-media pie.
November 10, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
3,500 protest near Fox studios
Century City's famed Avenue of the Stars was transformed into a boulevard of determined demonstrators Friday as more than 3,500 writers, actors and supporters swarmed nearby 20th Century Fox studios to bolster their resolve for a potentially drawn-out strike by the Writers Guild of America.
November 9, 2007
STRIKE REPORT
Pressure on both camps grows
Four days after Hollywood's first major strike in nearly 20 years began, pressures are mounting to get writers and the major studios back to the bargaining table.
November 8, 2007
Rerun season may hit sooner
Television's top writer-producers threw their collective weight behind the striking Writers Guild of America on Wednesday in a move that could accelerate the disappearance of some of the nation's most popular prime-time shows, including "Desperate Housewives," "Lost" and "The Office."
November 7, 2007
With writers on strike, networks ready a dose of reality with plenty of games
SOON it will be "American Idol" season, that sweet time of year when the world stops to crown a new singing sensation. The naysayers predicted that last year would be the year Americans stopped idolizing, and they were so, so wrong.
November 7, 2007
Strike about to cost jobs
A day after Hollywood's writers went out on strike, the major studios are hitting back with plans to suspend scores of long-term deals with television production companies, jeopardizing the jobs of hundreds of rank-and-file employees whose names never appear in the credits.
6:12 PM PST, November 6, 2007
Actors find themselves in conflicting roles over strike
What's an actor to do?
November 6, 2007
WRITERS STRIKE
Countdown to a walkout
It was 9:15 p.m. on Sunday and negotiators for the major studios and TV and film writers had spent nearly 10 hours holed up in the Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood trying to sew up an eleventh-hour deal.
1:29 PM PST, November 5, 2007
Writers picket outside studios
Hollywood's film and television writers fanned out across Los Angeles early this morning, setting up picket lines outside the industry's major studios -- Warner Bros., Fox and Disney among them -- and said they were prepared to settle in for what could be a long and costly strike.
October 28, 2007
Hollywood bracing for a writers strike
Film and TV writers, actors and crew members are canceling vacations, working overtime and squirreling away savings while they still can.
November 2, 2007
Average Americans weigh in on the writersÂ’ strike
A few weeks ago we headed out to average America's favorite LA gathering spot -- Hollywood and Highland -- to see just how much a regular person cares about the proposed writers' strike. There among the handprint gazers, the picture posers and the bucket drum listeners, we learned that most Americans, or at least the ones who travel to L.A., were aware of a brewing strike. How much they cared though, was up for debate.
October 26, 2007
Studios offer new proposals to avert writers strike
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on Thursday offered a modified package of proposals in a bid to keep fractious negotiations alive six days before the expiration of the writers contract.
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