Studios Push Back on WGA’s ‘Gig Economy’ Claims, Reject TV ‘Hiring Quota’

to it's tough to name a beauty trend that Gigi Hadid hasn't helped influence. The supermodel's voluminous bombshell blowout at the 2023 is certainly no exception.

A group of South Asian filmmakers, including Indian director Anurag Kashyap (Kennedy) and the team behind Pakistani Directors Fortnight title In Flames talked on a Cannes panel about how cinema can cross the political barriers that are keeping their countries apart. 

Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over artificial intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

As the Writers Guild strike stretches into its fourth week, Michael Schur is feeling resolute.

EXCLUSIVE: Sky wanted to start 2023 with a bang. Comcast’s European pay-TV giant gathered journalists at London’s salubrious Soho Hotel and laid on a banquet table heaving with Danish pastries. A smorgasbord of upcoming Sky content was also on the menu, but there was really only one show on everyone’s lips. The Last of Us had recently premiered and Pedro Pascal’s blockbuster apocalypse series was in the mood to steal Sky’s thunder.

Emiliano De Pablos Spain’s The Mediapro Studio is teaming with writer-director Marcel Barrena (“Mediterraneo: The Law of the Sea,” “100 Meters”) and Spanish star Eduard Fernández on real-life inspired social film “The 47.”  Scheduled to shoot in Catalan and Spanish June-July in Barcelona, “The 47” is based on the true story of Manolo Vital, a bus driver who, during the city’s expansion in the 1970s, help shape the Barcelona of today.  Produced by Jaume Roures and executive produced by Laura Fernández Espeso, Javier Méndez and Eva Garrido, the film is one of the projects The Mediapro Studio Distribution is presenting for international sales at the current Cannes’ Marché du Film.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Directors Guild of America is continuing its negotiations with the AMPTP, as companies hope to get a deal that could play a role in ending the two-week-old writers strike. Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America told members Monday that the guild is winning the “PR war” against the studios, as members share their stories in the media. “It seems the whole world is on our side,” wrote Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a WGA East vice president, in an email to members titled “Our Momentum Grows.” “Members’ individual stories of our broken system — of getting by on ten weeks of work a year, of residual checks amounting to pennies — are resonating with the public. They understand we are losing out on the middle-class American Dream. We are not the elite. We are just like them. We are them.”

The industry’s shift to streaming has made for some strange bedfellows at the AMPTP, which could impact when and how a new agreement with the WGA is reached.

ON ELECTION FRAUD:Right off the bat, Trump claimed “it was a rigged election. And it’s a shame that we had to go through it. It’s very bad for our country.” Collins responded: “It was not a rigged election, it was not a stolen election.

EXCLUSIVE: The fledgling Guild of Screenwriters of Ukraine (GSU) has backed its WGA counterparts “unconditionally,” stating that a “screenwriter is a creator of history and this should be evaluated appropriately.”

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 Let the gig economy debate begin. One of the most contentious issues in the writers strike that erupted May 2 is the assertion by the Writers Guild of America that screenwriting is in danger of becoming part of the “gig economy.” The WGA’s proposed solutions — mandatory staffing minimums and guaranteed weeks of employment — are equally dividing labor and management. Now that contract talks between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have cratered, complex issues are being chewed over by writers who are fired up, walking in circles (literally) and wound up about the long-term employment picture for Hollywood scribes.

The Writers Guild and several of its prominent members, recognizing that other workers in the entertainment industry are being impacted by the ongoing writers strike, have pledged more than $1.7 million to provide them with financial assistances during the walkout, which is now in its ninth day.

Andor creator/showrunner Tony Gilroy says he has ceased all non-writing producing duties on the Disney+ series amid the WGA strike.

EXCLUSIVE: The AMPTP has called the Writers Guild’s minimum staffing demands for episodic TV shows “a hiring quota that is incompatible with the creative nature of our industry.” But if the WGA prevails in its ongoing strike, it wouldn’t be the first guild to require minimum staffing in its contract.

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.

Alabama Barker is clapping back.

Elizabeth Olsen and husband Robbie Arnett are enjoying a day out together.

Outside the Fox lot in Century City this afternoon, WGA Negotiating Committee Co-Chair Chris Keyser appeared amongst over 150 members who were on site to picket following the breakdown of negotiations with the Alliance of Motion and Television Producers and the expiration of their contract.

walked off the job Monday night in the entertainment industry’s first strike in 15 years, after the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed to reach a deal.WGA said the decision to strike was made after six weeks of negotiations with the umbrella organization that is representing Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Discovery-Warner, NBC Universal, Paramount and Sony. But it’s the studios themselves where writers and supporters will carry signs and march. Picketing it set to take place from 1 p.m.