We Stand With the Writers and Actors

We're now well into two months for the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) strike of 2023, and just last week the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG-AFTRA) went on strike as well. This has, effectively, shut down all of Hollywood outside of a few small exceptions (international productions, such as those filming in Britain, are legally barred from going on strike in support of SAG-AFTRA, and some independent studios are able to continue work, with waivers, if they pay based on the current demands for SAG-AFTRA to the major studios). In short, every major studio production is shut down until the strike is over. Because the writer's are on strike, all the shows that would normally help promote films, like the late night talk shows, are shut down. Not that the actors could show up on them anyway, as striking actors are barred (by their guild) from showing up in support of major studio projects.

It's an interesting place to be at if you report, in any way, on current pop culture (as this site tends to do). The writers and the actors aren't working on their projects, and they can't promote them, as doing anything in support of projects is, in reality, supporting the major studio system, and it's the major studios (and their reactions to contract negotiations) that are the cause of this strike. What the writers and actors have put forth for their contracts was reasonable (and we'll cover them in a bit here). The studios rejected them and decided a strike was better so they could wait everyone out.

The demands from the writers are numerous, but there are major points that can be easily summarized. To start, the writers want fair compensation for their work on studio projects, including streaming shows and movies. The most recent demand was two-percent of profit on those shows and movies that would go to the writers in the form of residuals. Residuals are important and, up until the advent of streaming, were a natural part of the payment process. Writers would work on shows, those shows would air (and then air again in re-runs and syndication) and then the writers would get paid for their episodes. It was a good way to keep cash coming in for writers, especially those new to the industry and scraping to get by, so they can continue to work on shows and, you know, survive.

Streaming, though, changed all that. Because streaming shows (and movies) aren't considered the same kind of product as broadcast shows (even as studios will call all of them, in public, "television"), they don't have the same kind of contracted terms for residuals. And, even if they did, streamers are loath to report their actual broadcast numbers, making it hard to even verify is fair payments are being made. The writers want this to be changed and they want residuals to be set for their work on streaming media, just like with broadcast and film. It's an important enough point, also, that the actors have the same demand. They rely on residuals, too, and they get all but a pittance from streaming for their work while the streamers keep the shows up in perpetuity. Worse, with many streamers removing whole swaths of content simply to avoid paying residuals, actors and writers could get even less money to survive unless contract negotiations are fairly made.

For the writers, another major sticking point are the "mini-rooms". We touched upon this over on the podcast where we discussed the Writers' Strike (see: Season 6, Episode 21), but lets go over it here as well. In the past, television shows would have writers' rooms, a room where the ten or so writers would go to hash out a season, divvying up episodes to work on and work-shopping the ideas that would become those episodes. Then, once the episodes were done, and a script editor went over them, the script would be put into production. The writer would then get to hang around on set, watch the process of their episode being films, sometimes be there to help with last minute punch-ups, and they might even get to be in the editing process just to see how everything would come together. It basically allowed any up-and-coming writer a chance to learn the business so that, come the next season, they could even work their way up the ladder, to script editor, show runner, and more as the seasons (and shows) went on.

This was, of course, drastically altered during the COVID-19 pandemic. You, naturally, couldn't have ten or so people in a room together for any length of time during the pandemic, and working on a script at home, via web-conferencing, wasn't the same. It also squashed the ability for writers to be on set and learn the trade through the whole process of the episode's production. You couldn't have that many bodies on set, and the writer was often the first to get cut (since they were, at times, just hanging around).

This led to the heavier adoption of the "mini-room", an "innovation" of the streaming era. Instead of ten or more writers working on a series for its full length (22 episodes in a standard U.S. season), four to six writers would be assembled in web conferencing to hash out a streaming length series (usually eight to ten episodes). They would come on, hash out the season, write their episodes, and then placed on leave (effectively fired) while the shows was then overseen in its entirety by the main showrunner. If script edits were needed, the showrunner handled it. Adjustments on the fly, any steps during production, even the whole editing process all fell on the showrunner. The writers didn't get to do any of that.

What this would lead to are a lot of rushed projects because the writers had limited time to work on their scripts and then were booted out of the mini-room. There have been a number of shows where the entire set of scripts had to be reworked, by the showrunner, because the episodes didn't fit together, or the vision changed after the writers were done, or any number of reasons. If the writers were still around, they could fix that... but of course that would mean continuing to pay them. That's what the studios want to avoid. What they see is a smaller room, with less people to pay, and less people on permanent staff drawing paychecks. Why go back to bigger rooms?

Well, because the writers need it, of course. And the shows need it if they're going actually be watchable. Think how many middling shows there are on streaming networks right now. You can probably count the number of shows you actually look forward to on streamers on a single hand, but if you browse through any of them (NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it)., HuluOriginally created as a joint streaming service between the major U.S. broadcast networks, Hulu has grown to be a solid alternative to the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, even as it learns harder on its collection of shows from Fox and FX since Disney purchased a majority stake in the service., Disney+Disney's answer in the streaming service game, Disney+ features the studio's (nearly) full back catalog, plus new movies and shows from the likes of the MCU and Star Wars., etc.) you'll hundreds of shows that appeared and then faded to obscurity with nary a peep. If you watched any of them at all it was likely for an episode or two and then you turned them off form something else. Something better.

What the writers (and actors) want is fair compensation, and that's reasonable. The studios are dumping billions into their streaming efforts and aren't paying their creatives fairly. Sure, the studios will argue that they aren't making money on their streaming efforts just yet (outside of Netflix and Hulu), but that speaks more to them putting out a glut of middling projects after spending billions on them and failing to attract the audiences to watch. Studios heads shouldn't punish the creative because the big wigs couldn't keep their money in check. And yet, that's basically what they want to do: cut out anyone they have to pay, keep as much of the profits as they can, and just assume the industry will continue on like it always has.

We're going over all of this here not just to make the fair argument in favor of the writers and actors (although we are) but also because we want to stand in solidarity with them. While this site may be small, and we obviously aren't in any way related to the guilds financially, we do feel that continuing to report on major studio projects during the strike only aids the studios over the writers and actors. As such, we will not be covering new major studio projects until the strikes are resolved.

In the short term this means there won't be reviews for upcoming movies like Barbie and Oppenheimer, nor for shows like the currently airing Secret Invasion, or the upcoming Ashoka. Once the strike is over those works, and anything else that comes out between now and the end of the strike, will then be reviewed after the fact, when eyeballs put on those shows and movies gives the writers and actors that worked on them fair compensation. Instead we're going to go back and continue to cover older titles (stuff from before 2023) as well as games, comics, and other media. It's our small way to strike a blow for the creatives.

We stand with the writers and actors, and we here at Asteroid G invite you to do the same.