Update Post: November 28, 2023 10:08 am
Date: September 24, 2023 Time: 15:35:33
Negotiations between the writers’ union and Hollywood studios are in their “final phase” and it is expected that an agreement can be reached in a few days. The film and television studios reportedly submitted their “best and final” offer to the strikers on Saturday night for review and response, but hopes are high that the strike could end this weekend. . , according to a source close to the situation told CNN.
The big four studio bosses — Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, Disney chief Bob Iger, Netflix co-head Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal studio president Donna Langley — have been all this Saturday gathered to find a solution to the problem.
Even if a tentative deal were reached, it would still have to be ratified by rank-and-file members before it could take effect and even after that, without an agreement with the SAG-AFTRA actors union, which represents about 160,000 actors. . , the end of the WGA strike, the writers’ union, alone would not help much to resume paralyzed productions.
The WGA went on strike on May 2 and the work stoppage reached its 145th day this Saturday, putting it two weeks away from the longest strike in the union’s history, which lasted 154 days in 1988. For its part, SAG-AFTRA joined the strike on July 14 in solidarity with the screenwriters.
Both sides have similar sets of demands, including better wages, residual payments from streaming services for their work, and labor protections against the use of artificial intelligence.