The idea of a strike usually conjures up an inspiring image of oppressed workers making their voices heard by their higher-ups. Put “Hollywood” in front of that word, though, and the image fades. A picket sign doesn’t look so noble when it’s sticking out of a limousine window.
Even so, an industry-wide strike would mean big things for the entire film industry, and not just the movie stars. Screenwriters, directors, and basically anyone working in Burbank could be affected by this movement.
The strike centers on the issue of how the actors, writers and directors will be paid in respect to the new media available today. Writers only receive a flat fee for their work—if the Writers Guild of America, West or WGA wins, their members will receive extra compensation for DVD, syndicated and online earnings. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Directors Guild of America (DGA) hope to lay out similar deals.
On the other side are the producers, who are now in a time crunch thanks to this whole deal. The WGA contract is up on November 1, sooner than either the SAG or the DGA, whose contracts are up on June 30, 2008. There’s even a possibility that the WGA may strike sooner than next Friday. If negotiations don’t go well for the WGA, they may stay with the status quo until the other guilds’ contracts are up.
If all three guilds strike at the same time, the mass walk-out will cripple the entire medium. Imagine if, on one day, every restaurant worker stayed home. Everywhere. Nationwide. Even McDonald’s could go under if that happened, and Hollywood is no more invincible. A similar strike happened in 2001, which lasted for 22 days and cost the industry $500 million — and that was just the WGA. A superstrike could mean billions.
One effect of the past strike was that producers pushed some films through production too quickly, resulting in an overflow of underdone cinema. “Reign of Fire” and “Dark Blue” were just two of this great mass of dreck.
Doing this was a matter of necessity. Producers needed to have a stable of pre-made movies ready in case the strike lasted long enough to prevent any new projects from being made. Of course, that meant that when the strike stopped the safety movies went to theaters anyway. Why waste a pre-made cash-in?
The exact same situation could happen now. To beat the strike deadline, studios must begin filming by March 2008, and that means projects that would have longer development and editing times now have about six months to complete. Screenwriters need to pen a script in one month instead of the usual three and talent contracts have gone from 80 pages to 20 page short form deals.
The time frugality makes for some anorexic movie development. Many production studios have fast-tracked films that would otherwise have extensive schedules, such as the Justice League of America project. A Screen Gems horror remake must go from bought to greenlit in a month. Because of this, a screenwriting duo pumped out a script in just a week. The fourth “Fast And The Furious” film is being pushed to production, even though it doesn’t have a script or a director.
Some movies may not even come out until after the strike danger has passed, namely “Transformers 2”, which would never be able to come out in a tight timeframe. The 2008 Scorsese project “Frankie Machine” also looks like it may be shelved so it can come out fully realized at a later date.
This strike holds a lot of money and film work hostage. If the producers can see fit to release some of theirs, maybe everyone will go home happy.
