WGA & AMPTP Talks Conclude “Without An Agreement”

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA announced Wednesday that it will hold a strike authorization vote as it seeks to get its “ducks in a row” ahead of June 7 negotiations with the major studios. The vote does not mean that the performers’ union will necessarily join the Writers Guild of America on the picket lines after its contract expires on June 30. In a press release, the union said its negotiating committee decided that a strike authorization would provide “maximum bargaining leverage” for the talks. “We must get all our ducks in a row should the need present itself,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in the release. “The prospect of a strike is not a first option, but a last resort. As my dad always says, ‘Better to have and not need than to need and not have!’”

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.

From the kitchen to spending time with family! Celebrity chef Judy Joo sat down with culinary icon Simon Kim to discuss his food, success and family traditions.

As you have no doubt already heard, the WGA is on strike right now. Just over a week into it, this strike has already caused quite a few disruptions, with productions being halted and development coming to a standstill.

When are things not strange in Hollywood? Should we be surprised that there is always some industry or world crises crashing an awards season? Probably not, but it’s been quite a long time since a work stoppage affected the Primetime Emmy Awards. And, as we’ll discuss later, that means while writers form picket lines, actors and directors are still engaged in that Emmy nomination fight.

On the seventh day of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against Hollywood studios, guild leaders from both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, including actors union president Fran Drescher, hit the picket lines at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles.

Another TV shoot has been disrupted by striking writers, Michelle and Robert King’s supernatural drama for Paramount+ Evil, which has been filming its fourth season at Brooklyn Stages in Brooklyn.

“You make billions/pay us some!” striking Writers Guild of America members chanted on the street of New York today near where filming was going on for Showtime’s Billions.

David A. Goodman and Michele Mulroney marched alongside approximately 200 strikers at Paramount Studios in Hollywood on Tuesday in support of the WGA which is battling the AMTPT for better wages, among other things, on the first official day of the strike.

Writer-comedian Adam Conover, creator and host of Adam Ruins Everything and member of the WGA Negotiating Committee, had been outspoken on social media in the run-up to the guild’s talks with AMPTP, the collective bargaining representative of the major Hollywood studios.

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.

EXCLUSIVE: “We told them, and we told them for six weeks of negotiations, what they needed to address to meet writers demands, and have a real negotiation,” exclaims WGA Chief Negotiator Ellen Stutzman from the picket line today on the now-shuttered talks with the studios. “They refused the whole time.”

Writers Guild of America leaders are saying Monday night that the guild was forced to go on strike at midnight PT because their proposals to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on core contract issues “fell on deaf ears.”

What was long feared has come to pass, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers could not reach a new contract agreement. At midnight, May 1, the WGA went on strike with picketing scheduled to begin in front of Hollywood studios and networks beginning Tuesday afternoon.

AMPTP and the WGA concluded without an agreement today,” the AMPTP said in a statement issued Monday night.” The AMPTP presented a comprehensive package proposal to the Guild last night which included generous increases in compensation for writers as well as improvements in streaming residuals. The AMPTP also indicated to the WGA that it is prepared to improve that offer, but was unwilling to do so because of the magnitude of other proposals still on the table that the Guild continues to insist upon. The primary sticking points are “mandatory staffing,” and “duration of employment” — Guild proposals that would require a company to staff a show with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time, whether needed or not.

The Writers Guild sent a message to its members Monday evening saying that picketing will begin Tuesday afternoon if a deal on a new contract can’t be reached tonight.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Here we are at the precipice of an uncertain yet familiar place. The question of whether the TV and film industry will be shut down by labor action will be answered one way or another by the time Monday ends on the West Coast. In broad strokes, the Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers face one of three basic outcomes as the WGA contract expires at midnight PST. Behind Door No. 1 – the sides reach a tentative agreement. Door No. 2 — they agree on a short-term extension, which is unlikely but could be anything from 12 hours to 12 days, or more. Door No. 3 – the talks are called off by one side or the other — or both — and picketing ensues in Los Angeles and New York on May 2.

EXCLUSIVE: The current Writers Guild of America contract expires in just over 48 hours, and the scribes and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers are taking it down to the wire in hopes of reaching an agreement.

Jada Pinkett Smith and her son Jaden Smith travel in style.