A deal has been put forward by the alliance of US studios as hopes rise that the drawn-out writers strike may soon be resolved.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been striking for over 100 days now, with its ongoing dispute with US studios resulting in a Hollywood shutdown and the full ramifications of the labour dispute yet to be felt. After a long period in which the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) refused to come to the negotiating table, things finally seem to be moving in a positive direction.
With talks having now resumed, the AMPTP has made an offer to the WGA, giving up ground in several key areas. We know this because parts of the offer have been made public by the AMPTP, a smart move considering it is certainly on the losing side of the skirmish in the court of public opinion after several high-profile gaffes.
The new deal is said to offer writers better pay, in line with the raises that the Directors Guild of America received when it agreed terms with the studios earlier this year. What’s more, the AMPTP is offering writers access to an increased level of data transparency, meaning that creatives will have access to numbers to determine how well their project is doing on streaming platforms, and therefore the commercial value it holds.
Finally, the AMPTP looks to have conceded to the writers demands on AI as well, with the report stating that ‘Written material produced by GAI will not be considered literary material.’ There’s also been some concessions on the subject of mini-writers’ rooms which the WGA once labelled as ‘abuse’ of a decades-long system.
Of course, the key here is the actual details and wording in the offer and this simplified oversight that has been publicly released won’t reflect those small but crucial details. Still, it’s no doubt a positive step forwards towards what will soon hopefully be the end of this long and drawn-out labour dispute that has made life difficult for many people, even here in the UK.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
