Ellen Stutzman Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

The Writers Guild introduced new demands on Friday that could prolong the three-month strike even longer.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer David Young, the longtime executive director of the Writers Guild of America West, is stepping down, the guild announced on Friday. Ellen Stutzman, who served as chief negotiator through its 148-day strike this year, will take over as executive director. Young was initially expected to lead this year’s negotiations, but surprisingly took a medical leave in February, shortly before talks began.

The David Young era is ending at the Writers Guild.

Popular Israeli-American screenwriter Dan Gordon announced his decision to become a Financial Core (Fi-Core) non-member of the Writers Guild of America West after 56 years on Tuesday, calling out the union for staying silent on Hamas' terror against Israel. "I am resigning my membership in the WGA West and electing financial core status because I no longer wish to be a fellow traveler with those who hide behind the fetid veil of a morally bankrupt wokeism and stand silent in the face of a fanatical ideology no less explicit in its genocidal intent toward the Jewish people than that of Nazi Germany," he said in a letter to WGA West's membership administrator Patrick Cannon and assistant executive director Ellen Stutzman.

Longtime Writers Guild member Dan Gordon is resigning over the union’s lack of public support for Israel.

EXCLUSIVE: As the striking actors guild sits down today with the studio bosses for the first new talks in over 80 days, the writers are one step closer to officially ending their nearly 150-day labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

It was everything everywhere all at once Thursday in New York City: Striking actors getting ready for contract talks were joined by writers who have just wrapped up theirs at a rally in Manhattan that also highlighted Asian American Pacific Islander culture in film and television. 

EXCLUSIVE: “This strike was way too long, because the companies took so long to get serious,” WGA West President Meredith Stiehm declared tonight of the nearly 150 days the Writers Guild was out on the picket lines before a tentative agreement was reached on September 24.

After 146 days on the picket line, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has struck a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) to end the writers’ strike.

EXCLUSIVE: The roller coaster ride of the Writers Guild and the Hollywood studios trying to seal a deal to end the writers’ nearly 5-month-long strike isn’t over yet.

The Writers Guild brass and studios CEOs were working tonight to close a deal to end the scribes’ strike , but it seems they aren’t quite there yet.

The WGA is heading back to the bargaining table with the CEOs of Netflix, Disney, Universal, and Warner Bros Discovery on Friday.

EXCLUSIVE: A second day of direct negotiations between the Writers Guild and studio CEOs has concluded this evening.

Just hours after the studios and streamers made public their latest “comprehensive package” towards a deal with the WGA, the guild has responded – and its seems the AMPTP and top CEOs may have strategically overplayed their hand.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America will resume negotiations with the studios on Friday, the guild told members in an email. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is set to deliver a response to the guild’s proposals, the union said.

Meeting for the first time in more than three months, the Writers Guild and the AMPTP on Friday failed to reach an agreement to resume contract negotiations. Their inability to agree on terms for returning to the bargaining table comes after their much anticipated meeting to discuss a possible resumption of talks.  

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer In her most forceful comments to date about the Hollywood strikes, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called Friday on the unions and studios to reach a deal “immediately” to get the industry back to work. Bass, who has largely remained on the sidelines thus far, said she is willing to get personally involved to help bring the strikes to an end.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America is continuing to downplay expectations for Friday’s meeting with the studios, and is telling members that it will not be pressured into accepting a bad deal. Ellen Stutzman, the WGA’s chief negotiator, is scheduled to meet Friday with the head of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It will be the first formal meeting between the two sides since the writers went on strike on May 1.

Variety on Tuesday. That is the first communication between the two sides since May 1, when talks collapsed and the WGA voted to go on strike. The WGA informed its members of the outreach from AMPTP to Ellen Stutzman, the WGA’s chief negotiator, on Tuesday evening.

On the West Coast, the chief negotiator for the striking Writers Guild of America, Ellen Stutzman, is more than a week into an existential battle between the 20,000 union members she represents and the movie and television studios that are, for now, not at the bargaining table. 

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Ellen Stutzman, the Writers Guild of America West’s chief negotiator, was out early Monday morning taking part in the family-themed picket that drew big crowds of striking writers and their children — including a few furry family members — to the sidewalks outside Netflix headquarters at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Van Ness Avenue in Hollywood. Stutzman’s presence at the location that has been one of the most heavily trafficked picketing sites was praised by WGA members who feel that guild leaders are going the extra mile to provide support and communication on the strike that began May 2. Stutzman, who brought her young son Mateo in a stroller, said the next steps in the process of coming to agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are self-evident.

A group of top showrunners met today to discuss the WGA strike – a day after it emerged the studios told writer/producers were not excused from producing duties during the labor action.

EXCLUSIVE: As the deadline approaches to avert a threatened writers strike, IATSE President Matt Loeb has told leaders of his locals that it’s probably going to be do-or-die when the WGA’s current contract expires Monday night at midnight PT and that “he doubts an extension is in the cards.”

William Earl SAG-AFTRA’s national board has lent its support to the WGA as the latter guild buckles down for a last sprint of negotiations next week in the days leading up to the May 1 expiration of film and TV writers’ master contract with Hollywood’s major employers. “SAG-AFTRA stands strongly in support and solidarity with the members of the Writers Guild of America who are engaged in contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It is long past time for the studios, streamers, and other employers in the entertainment industry to remove roadblocks to fair and equitable wages and working conditions, and to agree to terms that reflect the unique worth and contribution of creative talent and workers, without whom the industry would not exist,” read a resolution passed Saturday by a unanimous vote of SAG-AFTRA’s national board.

UPDATED with latest: Talks between the WGA and AMPTP will continue on Wednesday. As Deadline revealed on Friday, the two sides were scheduling more conversations during their previously planned two-week break. This comes as the guild scheduled its strike authorization vote earlier this week after saying said the studios “failed to offer meaningful responses on the core economic issues in any of the WGA’s primary work areas” and admitted that they have made “small moves” towards an agreement.

EXCLUSIVE: We might be getting somewhere after it emerged that the writers and studios could hold more talks over the next two weeks.

Leaders of SAG-AFTRA and Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399 showed their support for the WGA on Monday, posing with WGA leaders shortly before the 11 a.m. start of the Writers Guild’s contract negotiations with producers at the AMPTP’s headquarters in Sherman Oaks.

Much like the beginning of a Congressional hearing on a hot potato political topic, expectations for the first day of talks between the WGA and AMPTP were high, but largely began with formalities.

Leaders of the Writers Guild of America won’t discuss the specifics of the contract proposals they’ve exchanged with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. But in an interview with Deadline on Tuesday ahead of next week’s start of negotiations, they made it perfectly clear a deal can be reached without a strike if the companies take the needs of writers seriously.

Meredith Stiehm, president of the WGA West, talked tough about the guild’s upcoming negotiations with the AMPTP in her speech Sunday at the WGA Awards.

There is a major change in the WGA negotiating team ahead of the March 20 start of talks with studios on a new contract. WGAW Executive Director David Young, who has spearheaded multiple bargaining campaigns on behalf of the writers, is going on a medical leave of absence starting today, the guild’s leadership told members in an email this afternoon.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer David Young, the chief negotiator for the Writers Guild of America West, has bowed out of the negotiations on a new basic agreement due to a medical leave. The WGA informed members Tuesday that Ellen Stutzman, the assistant executive director of the guild, will take over as chief negotiator. The move comes just three weeks before the high-stakes negotiations are set to begin with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The current three-year contract is due to expire on May 1, and writers have been agitating for significant increases in wages and residuals and for measures to address “mini rooms.” Stutzman has been with the guild for 17 years, and has been assistant executive director since 2018.

It has been a long goodbye for packaging since the WGA and the major agencies’ new franchise agreements, signed in 2020-21 after an epic fight, included a “phase-in of packaging fee prohibition” period that ends tonight. But while for the WGA “it’s the end of new packages on guild-covered projects going forward,” per WGA West assistant executive director Ellen Stutzman, I hear that WME, CAA and UTA may not feel that way. Different interpretations of the language in the agreement could trigger dozens of arbitration proceedings, with studios stuck in the middle of potential disputes.