After 148 days, the Hollywood writers strike is over. It will go down as the second longest strike in Hollywood history. And initial reporting in the aftermath suggests the writers have negotiated a great deal.
The Writers Guild of America were very pleased with the results, releasing this statement alongside the details of the proposed agreement, “We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional — with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.”
While the full text of the deal is yet to be released, initial reporting suggests some big wins:
- Increases to minimum wage and compensation
- Increases to pension and health fund rates
- Improvements to terms for length of employment
- Larger size of writing teams
- Better residuals (royalties for writers of TV and film), including foreign streaming residuals
There was some interesting language on Artificial Intelligence, which has been a key sticking point for both the Hollywood writers and actors strike. The agreement doesn’t prohibit the use of AI. Instead, the union’s statement explained, “A writer can choose to use AI when performing writing services, if the company consents and provided that the writer follows applicable company policies, but the company can’t require the writer to use AI software (e.g., ChatGPT) when performing writing services.”
While it is good that the strike is over, that the writers are getting paid and that we’re going to have plenty more content to fill our streaming services for years to come, it doesn’t feel like the big issues have been resolved. The term of this deal is until 1 May 2026. And we can only imagine how far AI will have come in the next three years. The larger threat of generative AI to the writing profession continues to loom and will continue to colour interactions between studios and writers for years to come.
This is an excerpt from our Thought Starters email. Once a week we send you 5 interesting articles that have caught our attention, to get you thinking. No spam, we guarantee.