Hollywood Braces for a Strike as Writers Demand More From Streamers
If the WGA and studios can’t agree on a new contract by May 1, filming of dozens of shows and movies risks coming to a standstill.
A 1981 Writers Guild strike in Hollywood, California.
Photographer: Robert Landau/Alamy
On March 5, one week before the Academy Awards, Hollywood’s screenwriting elite gathered at the Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel near Beverly Hills for their own love fest: the 75th Writers Guild Awards. In what augured an enviable sweep at the Oscars, the absurdist, genre-bending film Everything Everywhere All at Once from Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert won the guild’s most coveted award, best original screenplay.
Accepting that accolade, Kwan doled out thanks to an unusual recipient: his “picket captain,” a colleague overseeing preparations for a potential work stoppage by the writers behind virtually every American show, movie and streaming series. “If you don’t have a captain yet, go find one,” Kwan told the crowd gathered in the hotel’s ballroom. “Let’s give ’em hell.”