I made baby strike signs so kids can picket at their schools, playgrounds and places of employment. Dry erasable for your child’s particular grievance. Let me know if you want one!
Disney CEO Bob Iger says the writers and actors going on strike in Hollywood are not being “realistic” with their expectations: "It's very disturbing to me."
Hi it’s me, the negotiations grinch, reminding you that “very encouraging” and “incredible progress” are exactly what the studios would say if they want to get people’s hopes up and make the WGA look unreasonable for not taking a bad deal. Thanks/sorry/please wait for real news!
After a long CEO-attended session today that one insider described as “very encouraging,” the WGA and the AMPTP will return to the latter’s Sherman Oaks’ offices on September 21, we’re told
Looking forward to watching another very expensive and highly professional PR firm get absolutely humiliated by a few bored TV writers tweeting from the Bob’s Big Boy bathroom.
David Zaslav shared a statement to THR, saying, "I am immensely supportive of writers and hope the strike is resolved soon and in a way that they feel recognizes their value”
When deal points come out, there’s going to be a lot of talk that the WGA didn’t get enough to justify a painful strike. This is partly to save face for the CEOs, partly to cause resentment within the guild, and mostly to make strikes look ineffectual for other unions.
I called the LAPD Noise Enforcement Team (!!) and they said there’s nothing they can do about excessive noise at picket sites, so please be VERY LOUD near office windows, soundstages and outdoor productions.
Things are going great with the HBO Max “creators” cleanup, where now Moonlight has no writers, The Matrix has a third director, Moneyball has no filmmakers at all and the 1933 King Kong is rated TV-PG. Great job to all involved, thank you, love you, etc.
Media CEOs have no actual talents besides “soft skills” - understanding audiences, building relationships with artists, getting ahead of problems. The strikes have exposed them as being terrible at all of those things. So what value do they actually bring for their huge salaries?
Bob Iger, who earns $25M+ annually, is reportedly personally offended the WGA didn’t agree to AMPTP’s latest offer that doesn’t provide them proper fair pay & conditions
Writers are asking for a measly 0.18% average of a studio’s annual revenue
(Source: )
If I was an evil billionaire media tycoon with a nice life and a gorgeous collection of sport vests, I would have simply not forced thousands of the most famous people on the planet to talk about unions every day for months so that my nightmare labor summer repeats itself forever
BREAKING: Visual Effects (VFX) crews at Marvel Studios have filed for a unionization election with the National Labor Relations Board.
This signals a major shift in the VFX industry, which has been largely non-union since the 70s.
VFX WORKERS ASSEMBLE!!
And just a few minutes ago, a joint statement on the
#wgastrike
was issued from the studios’ recently hired crisis PR firm, The Levinson Group:
“The WGA and AMPTPT [sic] have reached a tentative agreement.”
Really sad to hear that the studios are going to have to shut down. There’s just no money in this business. Senior VPs are burning their office furniture to stay warm. Business affairs execs are selling plasma for cash. The Paramount lot is now a Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers.
I made baby strike signs so kids can picket at their schools, playgrounds and places of employment. Dry erasable for your child’s particular grievance. Let me know if you want one!
This is desperate fearmongering from the side that’s losing. Look for hit pieces on WGA leadership soon, rumors of secret meetings, letters from individual writers criticizing the guild. This is typical strikebreaking PR bullshit and Deadline will be happy to publish all of it.
It’s opening night at CEO Friday’s, our CEO-only pop up restaurant outside the new Netflix pop up restaurant. Thanks to billionaire chef Adam Lustick for doing 5 hours of improv on Fairfax, and special thanks to Netflix for having the dumbest idea in restaurant history.
Hey
@MayorOfLA
just wondering if you’d like to update your 70-day old “both sides” statement about the writers strike, now that one of the sides is attempting to drive the other into homelessness as a negotiating tactic? Thanks in advance for doing nothing at all to support us!
Uplifting news: A supermarket used AI to help people meal plan, and it immediately tried to kill everyone with a chlorine cocktail, “bleach-infused rice surprise,” ant poison and glue sandwiches, and “methanol bliss” - a turpentine-flavored french toast. Classic AI hijinks! Lol!!
After face to face meeting today, writers and producers near agreement to end WGA strike. Met today and hope to finalize deal tomorrow, according to people close to the negotiations, who, while optimistic, warn that without deal tomorrow strike likely continues through year end.
The orcas attacking boats after a female orca was injured by a rudder is fascinating but when you discover that what they're actually doing is tearing the rudders off the boats and leaving them to drift helpless to hurt another orca ever again it becomes the greatest thing ever
Yoooo
@WGAWest
members!!
💔 Congrats! ❤️
If the strike is officially over tomorrow you’ll have til midnight to have one last meal at Bob’s Big Boy or Swingers!
GO CELEBRATE!
Love you all!
“It is my fervent hope that we quickly find solutions to the issues that have kept us apart these past few months,” said Bob Iger today of the Writers Guild strike on Disney’s earnings call. “And I am personally committed to achieve this result”
It’s a good day to remember that the AMPTP are not evil geniuses, they’re a small office of lawyers above a Buffalo Wild Wings desperately trying to convince 8 of the world’s biggest megalomaniac assholes to stop trying to destroy each other so they can try to destroy us instead.
I made baby strike signs so kids can picket at their schools, playgrounds and places of employment. Dry erasable for your child’s particular grievance. Let me know if you want one!
Friendly reminder that any one of these zillionaire dipshits could end both strikes tomorrow, but they won’t because their allegiance isn’t to art, artists or audiences. It’s to power and to forever protecting that power for other obscenely rich people like them.
Really underwhelmed by the sloppy crisis PR work happening out there. For example, did you know the CNBC doofus who tweeted “if a deal doesn’t happen tomorrow then the year is over” is THE SAME FUCKING GUY from the Sun Valley Bob Iger interview? Do better please, I’m bored.
To their credit, The Hollywood Reporter has started identifying anonymous insiders as “studio-side” or “management-side”, which gives important context to their quotes. I appreciate it and wish other outlets would do the same.
The AMPTP so wishes there was a big group of writers plotting to overthrow the Negotiating Committee that they had agents call people on the weekend to (unsuccessfully) stir up dissent. Despite 97% vote, 7,000 survey responses, thousands picketing daily. So stupid and desperate.
Greatly resent not being among the TV showrunners who took a weekend call from an agent urging our union to accept a first-offer-in-four-months, one-hand-giveth-while-the-other-taketh-back deal. Missed opportunity to call some ten-percent wonder a greedy, empty shill.
#WGAStrong
Writers of earth, I beg you to not overreact to whatever unsourced garbage the trades put out today about negotiations. The meeting is good, their offer will be bad, and that’s to be expected. It’s the first step of many. Here’s what I emailed my team yesterday.
“To the writahs and actahs, when we get done kickin’ the shit outta UPS, your employahs are next!”
-Sean O’Brien, Teamsters General President and the most thoroughly Boston man I’ve ever seen
In case anyone doubts our impact, there’s not enough filming to fully operate a permit office in Los Angeles anymore.
“FilmLA will be implementing a temporary reduction in operating hours due to an overall decline in permit volume and on-location filming.”
Ron Perlman on the studio exec that wanted the strike to drag on until union members lose their homes:
“There’s a lot of ways to lose your house. You wish that on people, you wish that families starve while you’re making 27-fucking-million a year.”
“Tron 3” director Joachim Rønning wrote, "Today was supposed to be our first day of principal photography on 'Tron 3.' Instead, we are shut down with over 150 people laid off...The AMPTP, SAG-AFTRA and WGA need to speed up the negotiating process and not leave the table until
The key is so large. The hole is on the side of a wall? Is it a box that contains a deal? Why does the key matter when you can walk through the hole with a ladder? Is the deal too big to remove through the hole? Then why do you need a spyglass to see it? Why are the shadows wrong
(This is about the trades, the agents and the twitter trolls. WGA members will debate the details before voting on ratification. I don’t know the terms yet or how I’ll vote. But I know the studio rumor mill will pivot towards making the strike seem pointless the moment it ends.)
Drums, cowbells, cymbals, pots and pans, Imagine Dragons, vuvuzelas, trombones, big speakers playing John August’s podcast, etc. Make noise, wear earplugs, we’re all sick of talking to each other anyway.
Here’s where things stood when the strike started. We were never going to get everything we wanted, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be drastically better than this.
A lot of people are enraged by this, but 18 less yachts is devastating to the maritime orgy industry, not to mention cocaine salesmen, caviar spoon dealerships and local detectives who investigate dead waitstaff.
“This is what a recession looks like,” said one guest at David Zaslav’s Cannes party, gesturing to two megayachts in the distance. “There used to be 20 of these.”
Barely a mention of Carol Lombardini in all the strike roundup pieces. Totally sidelined by the CEOs and defeated by the guild. A tragic fall from grace for a once-great villain. Not even worthy of a funny Halloween costume anymore.
More anti-union messaging is on the way. If streamers raise prices, make less shows or start consolidating, it’ll all get blamed on the strikes. Not the unsustainable growth models that created a bubble. It’ll be the workers’ fault for taking back 1-2% of the profits they create.
His email: president
@bu
.edu
Here's what I sent:
"President Brown,
That wasn't "cancel culture" that your students displayed. That was their own free thinking and free speech.
You, and your fossilized, lazy thinking, can go fuck yourself.
Best always,
Jorge A. Reyes
WGAE Member"
The only explanation for a midnight Saturday press release before even notifying members is the AMPTP made a “final” offer with a clock on it, probably timed to undercut the SAG vote ending tomorrow, and the DGA went for it.
Can we post our secret photos from weird rapid response pickets now? This was an overnight campfire-style picket on a dirt road in Agua Dulce. Writers drove up in shifts to hold the line for 72 hours. I was too scared of coyotes to form long term memories, but I think it was fun.
If any ex-employees want to covertly share dirt on their $246 million boss, I will meet you in a parking garage of your choosing (please not the Hollywood and Highland one).
EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. Discovery is set to undergo another round of layoffs in its television business. Deadline understands that the company is expected to cut some roles in its cable TV business, which includes the Discovery-branded cable networks
I should also add that I’m not a lawyer or a particularly smart person (majored in communication), so if a policeman tells you to quiet down you should probably do that until they drive away.