Will the WGA Strike? Can It Afford Not To?

Welcome

back to the Bulwark Coast of Hollywood. My name is Sunny Bunch. I’m culture editor at the board. And I’m very pleased to be rejoined by a favorite guest of the show, frequent frequent visitor here. And I I would like to thank that the reason you guys over at the Angler, which, you know, you’re growing by leaps and bounds, you’re getting nice write ups in in vanity fair and the such.

Richard is because you were the first guest on the Bulwark goes to Hollywood. That’s what that’s

what really has has sent you shooting to the moon here. I I I can’t think of what else has propelled it. And this is completing my trilogy. Meant to be listened to as a as a set also of — Yeah. — of of appearances.

So the all the little seeds I planted in the first in my first appearance are are gonna bear fruit and explode in this in this episode. So Well,

the the Anchor Cinematic Universe is a key portion of the Bulwark goes to Hollywood as people know. You know, you on the show. We’ve had Sean McNulty on the show. We’ve had Janice Mint on the show. It’s one of these days we’re gonna get the entertainment strategy guy.

Out of his head.

Well, claims he’s working on a voice disguiseer.

He’s been saying he’s been saying that for months now. He’s and he’s been saying that for a year now. I Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. Maybe I control them into into getting it getting it together. But, no, it’s very it’s very nice to have you back on the show Richard Rushfield of the Ankla, very excited to have you on.

And we’re talking about a very serious topic today because I I have, for months now, I’ve been banging the drum on this. I mean, at least in part on on Richard’s insistence, but frankly, I think it’s the underreported story Until now, people are finally starting to pay attention to it. And that is the very real possibility of a strike by the writer’s guild of America. It’s been, what, fourteen, thirteen, fourteen years since the last strike, fifteen years since the last strike, you know, we’re we’re about due for one. But also it’s not just a a matter of being due for one.

The the issues at play are somewhat intractable Am I am I right or am I wrong? Well,

they require either way so there’s there’s two ways that that the issues can be addressed, that the the streamers in particular can completely reorganize the way they do their business. Or they can completely reorganize their economics so that the the the so that the way they produce a million shows completed changes. So It’s the likely it’s it’s the question of, in the next six weeks, is the streaming world going to completely reorganize itself? And and on the other side of it, you have you have the writers who are I I think absolutely show every sign of. They’re absolutely willing to take this all the way to strike it beyond if if it comes set.

So

Well, I mean, this is so I am notoriously kind of labor unfriendly. At least amongst my friends, my my friends, you know, know I’m a I’m a man of the businessman, not the not the little not the little man. But I I’m I’m actually I this is this is one of these cases where I am almost completely on the side of the writers because it seems to me that the situation is entirely untenable, that there were economic promises that were made, that are frankly very hard to keep. And and most importantly, really, the the issue here that is most unsolvable from my point of view. And you touched on this a little bit in your in your big piece at the Anchor, which is why I’m having you on the show.

I should introduced this properly. Richard wrote wrote a a good kind of stage setting piece for the the seventy days we have until the the contract between the writers killed. And the the producers’ expires. But the the the real issue here and I don’t know how anybody is going to solve this because I think The streamers would rather die than do it, and the writers can’t survive without it. But it’s about data.

It’s the only way the only way to ensure that the writers are properly paid for how successful their products are is for them to get access to much better data than we have. And the streamers have absolutely no interest in giving that up. Right? I

mean, that’s that’s the thing with with the tech companies. Data is is I mean, data is everything. That is that is what you’re in force. So it’s like asking you know, it’s like asking them to to give their their their first three their their three first born children over. Like, that’s that that that’s not I I think here in Hollywood, we think of data as just some little number thing that that’s on the side.

But that is the reason you do it in the tech world. And the idea of giving up their data is beyond and after much of them. But the flip side is if they don’t wanna give it up, they can just pay vastly more for the server. They can just pay everybody like like every show is a hit. So that that would work too.

It it makes it then untenable to produce, you know, release fifty new shows every week. But at at that cost. But it’s because part of this also is the writers are just the the edge of the the spear here. And they’re gonna be followed by the directors and IA and Evertz. So if the writers get concessions and everyone else is gonna come along.

Get concessions. So if the if if they fundamentally change economics of this, then it’s it’s gonna go all the way down the line there.

Well, right. I mean, let’s alright. So let’s take one step back to to what you mentioned here, which is a, you know, they aren’t the writers aren’t strictly speaking dealing with movie studios in the classic sense. Right? It used to it used to be you you you’re the writers or the actors or the directors they band together and they’re they’re negotiating against Paramount and, you know, Universal and Disney and whoever else.

Really though, they’re they’re in the midst of dealing with Tech Titans. They’re in in the midst of dealing with companies that were founded on kind of Silicon Valley ideals and ideas. In some cases, you know, companies that only are very marginally involved in the the film business, companies like Amazon and Apple. In other cases, companies that are entirely involved in the film business like Netflix but they all have that kind of tech mindset in which writers are to be looked at essentially as synonymous with factory employees in an Amazon factory. Right?

Yeah. Exactly. And they they they think the value that is created comes from a a very few people at the top, the the cult of the founders, and and all of them would have engineering degrees. Like, anyone who doesn’t have engineering agrees is, like, barely a human being. Yeah.

But the and and that ever and the idea is you squeeze everybody else for how however the the cheapest you can get labor for. In in in every possible way. And then we we’ve seen that across the board. The problem is that Hollywood Hollywood really is kind of the most democratic of industries in a lot of ways because for for all its flaws, it’s it it it has supplied a a a good living way even as even as people with the very top get get have got gotten enormously fantastically wealthy. It’s had a very good living wage for everyone from the stage hands, the makeup artists, to the writers all the way down the line for a hundred years now until the last ten years.

And that’s that’s what’s being threatened.

Well, so let’s let’s zoom in a little bit specifically on the writer. So, I mean, here’s the argument that studios Right? The studios would make the argument that we are employing more writers than ever before. More writers than ever before are getting jobs on our on our shows because we’re making five thousand shows a year. And, you know, each of those shows needs, you know, six people at least in if we’re doing a mini room or it needs, you know, ten people for doing a full room, whatever.

So are we supposed to be able to afford? And we’re and on top of this, we’re losing money. All the streaming companies are losing money. We’re none of us, how are we supposed to make money if we pay you more who were also employing more. We’re gonna have to fire a bunch of people, but how do you I mean, how do the writers respond to that?

I mean, these streamers are basically saying in when we’re every we created a situation where we have to do a insane number of of shows that are unaffordable. So you have to support us doing this insane number of shows that aren’t insubordable. This is an unsustainable situation that that they created. So, you know, they they can’t suddenly come in and say, you know what? We we with too many shows, we can’t have fire fire alarms in the offices anymore.

So if if some of you have to burn burn to death now and then, you know, that’s that’s the cost of of of putting out a hundred new shows a week. It’s their responsibility. And and working in Hollywood requires a vast skilled labor force. And if people can’t afford to live a normal life, no class life as a as a writer and it goes to and becomes, you know, interns and twenty one year olds writing your shows, well, you’re gonna see what you get from that. And and it’s gonna be not too far from TikTok videos of someone’s skateboarding into a wall, I think.

Well, you as you as you note in the at the end of your your missive the other day, you know, there’s nothing less at stake here than the the fate of civilization in a very in a very real way.

I think, sir, it it you know, but for but for the nail, the kingdom was lost. It’s if This is the Riders Guild negotiation is what comes down to is can can Hollywood which has created a very high standard of professionalized entertainment and culture, the greatest culture factory the world’s ever seen, can it survive doing that? And if if if if the if the writers’ guild negotiation fails and it’s followed by the other gilts collapsing in the same way. The road to TikTok is wide open. And that and and the the idea of a high standard of professionalized culture collapses.

And I I don’t thinking about a civilization where, you know, you don’t have two and a half men. Let don’t forget about, you know, tar. It’s like that where you just don’t this is how people learn how to understand the world and how relate to others through cultural products, whether it’s a sitcom episode, or or, you know, it’s rarely a little independent film that of the type gets nominated for Oscars, but it’s it’s it’s still a very high standard of entertainment product. And and if that disappears, We forget how to talk to each other and relate to each other in a big way. And and and civilization, I think, gets much worse.

So all that is on the backs of the writers right now that if they can’t produce a victory out of this and the civilization collapses.

You you mentioned, and this is this is the thing I do hear from from my my friends who are working writer sometimes, in particular, is that look, you know, we’ve got we’ve got a bunch of people in the guild who aren’t working right now who kind of see this as a as a chance for a big adventure. You know, they’re gonna stick it to the man. We’re gonna they’re gonna get out there and they’re gonna all of us out of work. We’re all gonna be out of work, and that’s not that’s not great. Nobody wants that.

Is there do you think there is a split in the in the membership between folks who are itching to strike just to do something and and the others or is is or is there is that less of a concern earn than it might otherwise be.

I mean, and that’s that’s always a very real factor with the with the writers’ guild. And it’s why you know, that anytime they put something to a vote, the I mean, in in in the last election, the the the most militant faction one overwhelmingly. I mean, not not with, like, sixty percent, but with, like, eighty five percent of the vote. Like, they huge huge margins because there there are a lot of people in the guild who are unemployed or under employed and just, you know, just young folk who don’t don’t know what a strike really boils down to or happy to it or happy to just spend a few months waiving their fist outside the studio gates. But this you know, in the in the past negotiations, I’ve I’ve felt that that faction was was driving the the writers off cliff or or things that aren’t really meaningful.

This time, like, like you say, I’m I I I feel like these are truly important issues and the the lunatics are actually on the side of on the side of the right and and things that have to be addressed this time. How do

you compare the mood right now to the mood in two thousand seven, two thousand eight? Which is the last time we saw a big strike. I mean, our I I know I know folks really were convinced that there was gonna be a strike in twenty twenty and that kind of fizzled out. I think part because of COVID, but there were some, you know, there’s other other stuff going on then too. But I I this does feel like the first time really that, like, Looks like it’s gonna happen.

Yeah. I mean, it when was it? Two four four years ago, it it Every everyone was betting. It was gonna it it was gonna happen. It it it and it they came to agreement last minute, and My strike o meter still gives that a one and three chance of happening this time.

So I’m I’m not I’m not saying that’s impossible. But it I I’d say the the feeling is much worse than it was in two thousand seven. I think in two thousand, they had a real grievance and and a lot of anger and a lot of people charge up and when doing the and ready to take to the streets to do something about it. I think this time, there’s a there’s a a sense that this this profession might collapse and that we can’t go on and that they that everyone who’s in it has knows lots of people had to give it up and leave the bush and leave Los Angeles, which is at the time all this is happening become a fantastically expensive place to live. And and I think I I I do I don’t think the last time it was a seen as a fight for the survival of the profession, but I I I think it really is seen like that this time.

And there’s much more fear.

What does what does the profession of a screenwriter look like if they if they aren’t able to extract real concessions from the from the producers here. I mean, I like, are are we just looking at a situation in which you have a thousand people who were working three different shows a year and trying to string scrape together, you know, a hundred grand to live in Los Angeles. I I what does it what does it actually look like to be an employed writer in in the future that Netflix and its and it’s ill quant.

I think it’s really hard. It’s I mean, a big part of it is is when I was a freelance journalist, I I I wanted to say, like, if you if you got a contract, it was worth almost double the money that the contract paid because you had predictability and you could plan your life around it and you knew what what he did. And if if you’re just constantly hustling for the next job constantly looking for the next thing. It just makes life so much more chaotic and scary and you can’t you can’t work in an ordinary way. It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s a force what’s the opposite of a false force multiplier, a force divider, or whatever in your in in your line.

And so it’s you know, people hustling for these six week jobs that that may get even smaller. It’s they’ve been a big part of the thing is these many rooms. That they’ve allowed the streamers to to create where it’s it’s it’s just a tiny number of writers or just one writer. Doing it. So it’s less people employed for less time and it just becomes really difficult to scrape all that together for a living.

So it’d be it’ll become the people who have family money, the people who have a spouse who is actually supporting their baby. Basically, people are doing it as a hobby. And and a few you know, Sean Rhimes and Ryan Murphy will continue to work and be able to pay their rent. And then a lot of a lot of twenty one year olds who will do it for a couple of years and then go to law school.

So it’ll be it’ll become like journalism is what you’re saying.

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, we we blazed the trail to set the template for a ruin of an industry here. Oh, man.

Okay. Quite glad we could do that too. What so I I guess here’s here’s a point that you bring up in your in your newsletter that I think is kind of interesting and under examined, which is that the studios aren’t really the studios anymore. The studios are not really playing the same game anymore. They you you have Netflix, which is doing its own thing.

You have Warner Bros. Discovery, which is doing it something. You have Apple and Amazon, which are essentially the dilatants waltzing in and, you know, just trying to win awards or, like, doing this little boutique thing that’s for prestige. Is there any way why why wouldn’t the writer’s guild start trying to negotiate with everybody separately instead of the producer’s guild as a as as a concept. Because

I

think that I I I I I understand I understand why you don’t wanna do that, but I also don’t understand why the writer’s guild feels compelled to deal with all of these companies at once instead of taking them part by part.

Yeah. I’ve thought of that too, and I I bet that is an outcome. I I think at the moment, the producers are still hanging together and refusing to to have separate talks. But at some point, you have to wonder if your David Zaslow or or Bob Iger are you going to go down because Ted Sarandos doesn’t want to change the way he does business, that that, you know, that Eiger and Eiger and Zaslow could easily probably work this out and come to terms and all that. But But but for the streamers, it’s very difficult.

And it’s, you know, it’s difficult. As as you say, Apple, which is now you look in the number of shows, they’re producing a huge I mean, it’s it’s a little boutique thing, but it it’s huge now. It’s it’s huge huge amount of production. Nobody even knows why they’re in it. Like, what what is the point of this?

So it it’s very hard to align your align your goals if your producers with with a company that you don’t even know what the heck they’re doing here. Amazon, everybody assumes they understand that it’s to get people to buy more diapers on on prime, but but no one actually knows that and how that economics all all adds up. The, you know, the the the the problem is that if they if the scenario someone’s suggesting to be, if if say the legacy producers start talking on their own that the the the streamers could could undercut them here. It’s a scenario for you and say, okay, we’re gonna make a great deal with the writers’ guild, and we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna go off on our separate We’re gonna make a fantastic deal that your legacy studios can’t even begin to afford to match. And then we will just drive you all out of business in two weeks.

So that that that’s they they there is some incentive for hang for them to hang together for this because they could do a lot to stab each other in the back. Yeah.

I mean, I just you know, I look at this situation and and it seems to me the best play for the writers is to play hardball and then to try and pick somebody off because I I like again, Netflix Netflix’s whole model is based on. Next Netflix’s whole business model is based on we have all the data. We know what people wanna watch. We know when they’re turning off. We know BOHA!

And if they are loathe to give that up to ensure some sort of proper you know, residual payout because that’s really the big deal. That’s the issue here. As as much as anything else, as much as the small writer’s rooms, as much as the uncertainty. The idea that Netflix has these huge shows that do hundreds of millions of hours of views and then the writers don’t see any of that after the fact is maddening to them. It’s not how it’s not how the industry works.

Or at least it it’s not how it has worked until now.

I mean, it’s so bad for the industry in so many ways. It’s it’s it’s bad in terms of how people get paid and how how they get there. Right? But it it’s also I mean, this is the worst effect of the the stream world that that we created this this system whereby the creators of shows and people are working them are gonna get no feedback and no no audience metrics, no response. No nothing.

Like, you you get everyone tells a story of you. They view a show on on Apple or on on on Netflix and it comes out. And on Monday, you get a call from a VP maybe who says, yeah, we’re feel good about it. Is that alright? Or or maybe you don’t get a call.

And then you try to figure out what that means. And it’s that’s the metrics now. And it just, you know, since since ancient Greek theater, it’s the audience response. It’s there’s a there’s a feedback loop here that to to to just cut that off has been I I think it’s been a terrible thing artistically. And it’s a terrible and and it makes it really hard to for people to make deals and make money and to understand what their what their work is worth also.

Yeah. David Mammoth has a riff on this in one of his books. Maybe maybe his book on theater. But basically, the idea that artists and playwrights getting money from government subsidized organizations is bad because what what it does is it reduces the need to please the audience with good, you know, stage productions. And once you start doing that, you you end up just going into your own little head space where it’s not it’s you’re not actually producing anything worthwhile, which I think is I think it’s a real risk for a lot of

natural risk, but nothing I think everything has to be has to be Avatar, but but within your own world and your own sector to have some idea, like, is is this resonating with the people that I was I was trying to speak to at all? Like, and and and said you just know, like, is some Netflix VP saying he’s happy today. That’s that’s which may or may not be related to how your show did.

That’s that’s all we that’s all we can hope for is to make baseless VP number six at Netflix happy. Here’s here’s a question for you from your side of things, from the reporting side of things. How have things in the the reporting of Hollywood business changed over the last fifteen years because I you know, one of the one of the interesting subplots of the two thousand seven, two thousand eight strike was that it is in part what allowed the rise of Nikki Fink and Debine Hollywood Daily. Right? It it shifted a sea change in the way the the industry news broke from Variety and Hollywood reporter to kind of more, you know, newsletters, blogs, that sort of thing.

And now that energy seems to be shifting almost entirely to the world of newsletters. I mean, obviously, Friday and Hollywood reporters still doing good interesting work. But when I wanna read about what is really happening in the strikes, I I I read the inkler. Right? I read David Poland’s newsletter.

I read I read, you know, what what other writers are looking at. Where are the writers going to go to this time around to to make their case most directly to the public?

Yeah. I mean, I I we have a lot of plans here at Danklars to try to amplifies those feelings, but I I think it is from newsletters, from podcasts. I I don’t think they’re gonna find the big Penskim Media institutional voice. Penskim Media is the media company that owns all the trades, essentially, except for a subtle upstarts. Becoming being there on the front lines for for for them.

They the trades are too much be the the the downstream effect of what Nikki did. Of of sort of breaking news faster and and and not not waiting for the stately pace of the morning paper. Was that everyone is the the trade reporting is really driven by all these little scoops of, like, you know, two and a half men announces its mid season return date and who gets to be the who gets to announce that or someone switches agents or a script deal happens. And all these little things that are just too small and boring that no one not many people even inside Hollywood care, let alone people outside. But but that is ninety percent of what trade reporting is.

And to get those little scoops, you have to be you know, very cozy with a lot of people and that you have to with with the companies and everything and they are very vocal when you annoy them and and and they’re not gonna they’re they’re not gonna send things your way. And then, you know, for the with the the trades also have all sorts of, you know, they need they need people for their covers now. They need people they they they they do the cover stories they have. They do all these conferences. They need people from conferences.

They need people further. They they have their you know, f for for your consideration, contenders, videos, and all this, and they need they need stars for those things. So they’re enmeshed with the people that are covering in so many different ways that it’s kinda just unthinkable. And, you know, ten, fifteen years ago, even before Nikki Fink, it was the and why is it the LA Times? See, the columnists there were called were called were thought of is incredibly soft.

And and and that they they were easy on the industry. They routinely called for heads of studios to be fired in ways you can’t imagine any trade person doing that. I mean, you you look at them you you look at them today and and you would think like those people were were savages. But it it just like it’s unthinkable that it trade people right that way today.

Yeah. In your in your letter, you put the odds of a strike. The strike meter is at sixty five percent right now. I guess, as we’re we’re talking about doomsday clock, we’re still about four minutes away from midnight, you know, we we’ve got we’ve got a little ways to go. But I do think I this is the most the most worried you have been in some time.

Yeah. I since I started doing the Ankler on I I think the highest the strike meter has ever gotten is has been to about twenty twenty five percent. I I I the the previous showdowns, I I I really didn’t think that they were gonna come to strike that the issues didn’t seem clear or serious enough for for that. And, ultimately, they were resolved in the nick of time. Remember, they can they can also choose at the last minute.

They can say, okay. We’re gonna extend the the contract for another three weeks so that so the the talks can continue, so they didn’t. The May first deadline may not be the actual deadline. But And and I think that there’s still a chance that when I mean, it’s in the studio’s hands right now to to come up with something that seriously addresses these issues. And I I I still think there’s there’s a better than an okay chance that when they look into the abyss of what a strike means.

And, you know, none of none of these companies including Netflix has had such an easy stock ride ride in the last couple of years. And what happens in Netflix stock if if the industry goes on strike now? And they’re looking at being depressed. So when they when they when they stare into that, they may they may suddenly find they’re a lot more flexible than they thought they were.

No. As you know, I always like to ask if there’s anything I should have asked. If I think there’s anything folks should know about state of the industry, state of the Hollywood media, what what what what should folks have on their radar?

You know, and I never prepared for that question. I think I think after all these interviews, I did. All these visits that have something prepared for that. The hits or the we were very focused on sort of the big corporations and the big the big production and everything and the hits are going to come from unexpected places. And what changes Hollywood is gonna come from probably new companies doing doing things differently.

New new kinds of films you weren’t expecting like, you know, this weekend we have cocaine beer and and Jesus Revolution. Which are both in in different ways of as far from Marvel films as as as you can get. But I think the entrenched you know, Netflix made it and made a big shakeup of things, but seems incapable of of going beyond its initial tenants. So I think there I I think some it’s time for another change and something else to come along that’s gonna shake things up. Hopefully, it won’t be TikTok just alloy, which I I enjoy the watching the the videos there very much, but But hopefully, that that isn’t the entire future of entertainment.

And there’s there’s a lot of room for something else.

Fingers crossed. Alright. Thank you once again for being on the show, Richard. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure. Awesome.

There was a there was very nice profile you guys in the in vanity fair, I’ll include a link to that. People folks can read that if they they so choose, and they should go subscribe at the Anchor.

Absolutely. And and and I’d I’d say also that, you know, much of my much of what I wrote was informed by Sean Ryan’s conversation with you a couple weeks ago that that he laid out the issues, like, better than better than anyone else has, any anywhere else. So I people are interested in a subject. I I I recommend they go back and listen to that episode if they haven’t already.

Yeah. That was a that was a fun one. And, you know, thank thank you for helping. Helping make some connections there. Alright.

I’m Sunny Vonage, I’m culture editor at the Bulwark, and I am very pleased to have Richard back on the show. I will be back next week. With another episode of the Bulwark goes to Hollywood. We’ll see you guys

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