Hollywood’s writers and actors are on strike

While the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America’s ongoing labor strikes have brought production on most of Hollywood’s movies and shows to an indefinite stop, filming on the fourth season of The Chosen — Dallas Jenkins’ historical drama series about Jesus Christ — is reportedly continuing because it is not associated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Deadline — the entertainment industry trade that recently came under fire and subsequently apologized for aggressively misrepresenting an actor’s thoughts about the strike — reports that SAG-AFTRA has granted The Chosen an exemption allowing it to keep shooting its forthcoming fourth season due to its being a “truly independent” production.

Over the last eight months, disparate segments of the public have clamored to integrate generative AI software like OpenAI’s ChatGPT into their daily lives — and especially into their work.

Everyone from doctors and online marketers to students and tennis announcers is experimenting with bringing AI tools into the fold. Aspiring millionaire spammers are using chatbots to speed up their junk generation, while artists are using AI art tools like Midjourney to beat out human competition. At least one lazy lawyer tried — and failed — to cut down on the research they needed to do. The promise of maximizing output and saving time is driving much of the “experimentation.”

After weeks of unsuccessful negotiations between the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the union representing about 160,000 of the entertainment industry’s American laborers will begin striking at midnight tonight.

This afternoon, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland announced that the union’s national board has unanimously voted to go on strike in direct response to the AMPTP’s refusal “to offer a fair deal on key issues essential to protecting the livelihoods of working actors and performers.”

Ahead of SAG-AFTRA’s current labor contract with the AMPTP expiring on June 30th, hundreds of the union’s members have signed an open letter to leadership warning that they are more than ready to strike if a new deal properly addressing all of their concerns isn’t hammered out.

Earlier this week, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher and national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland posted a curious video update in which they said that they couldn’t provide any real details about the union’s negotiations with the AMPTP for confidentiality reasons.

Disney’s Marvel brand has cemented itself as a disquietingly dominant pop cultural fixture whose outsize influence on the larger entertainment industry can be seen in the way that virtually every studio is in the cinematic universe business these days. Even now, Marvel’s approach to filmmaking doesn’t always work well or resonate with audiences. But because Marvel’s one of the largest fish in the pond, decisions it makes — especially those regarding the technology behind its films and tv shows — are easy to interpret as the studio merely keeping pace with the times rather than as one of Hollywood’s giants helping to define what entertainment should look like and how it should be made.

For the most part, Marvel’s hype-forward way of debuting new projects and then touting all the tech-driven creativity involved in their making afterward has worked in the studio’s favor. But with Secret Invasion — Disney Plus’ latest series set in the MCU — and its open use of AI-generated art, Marvel’s waded into a complicated situation where its own troubled history with VFX workers and AI’s demonstrated potential for harming human artists both make the show seem to be a concerning sign of things to come.

This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more.

When Spotify announced yesterday that it would lay off 200 employees from its podcast unit and combine Gimlet and Parcast into a single operation, it came as a shock to outside observers. But former and current podcast employees at Spotify have seen the writing on the wall for some time. 

Filming for Thunderbolts, the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe film centered around the franchise’s anti-heroes, has been delayed due to the ongoing writers strike, The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline report. Production had been due to start in the coming weeks in Atlanta, but now isn’t expected to commence until after the strike ends.

Thunderbolts is just the latest production impacted by the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike. The union representing roughly 11,500 writers from across film, television, and more went on strike at the beginning of this month in a dispute around pay in an increasingly streaming-dominated era. The WGA is also seeking to regulate the use of generative AI in writers’ rooms.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s baffling (but unsurprising) decision to lump writers, directors, and producers together as nondescript “creators” in Max’s new credits section has been met with almost nothing but contempt for reasons that should be very clear four weeks into an industry-wide writers strike. Now, the entertainment giant is apologizing for the move, blaming it on technical issues and apparently working to make things right.

In joint public statements from Writers Guild of America West president Meredith Stiehm and Directors Guild of America president Lesli Linka Glatter, both organizations lambasted Warner Bros. Discovery Wednesday afternoon for Max’s “devaluation of the individual contributions of artists.”

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav took to the stage at Boston University’s 2023 commencement ceremony this past weekend intending to receive an honorary doctorate and to ingratiate himself with this year’s graduating students by imparting some useful wisdom. While Zaslav got his degree, his speech to BU’s students was received anything but warmly as numerous people throughout the crowd shouted him down in support of the WGA’s ongoing strike for better pay and working conditions.

Almost as soon as a sunglasses-sporting Zaslav launched into an uninspired speech reminiscing about his own time at Boston University as a law student, people throughout the commencement ceremony crowd began booing at the 63-year-old entertainment executive and did not let up until he stopped talking almost 20 minutes later.

As of today, thousands of Hollywood television and movie writers are going on strike for the first time in 15 years. 

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) voted unanimously to strike on Tuesday after contract negotiations with the major Hollywood studios collapsed. The WGA is attempting to secure higher wages and better working conditions from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — a group representing around 350 major studios and streaming services like Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple, and Sony — for the thousands of movie and television writers the union represents. Picket lines are expected to form starting Tuesday afternoon.

While contract negotiations between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are still underway, the WGA’s members have just gotten one step closer to striking should this round of talks not resolve before May.

Deadline reports that an overwhelming majority (97 percent) of the WGA’s members voted today to authorize a strike — a move that empowers the WGA West Board and the WGA East Council to call for a strike if the WGA and the AMPTP can’t agree upon a fair labor contract by May 1st. (Disclosure: The Verge’s editorial staff is represented by the Writers Guild of America East.) Of the WGA’s eligible voting members, 9,020 voted in favor of the strike authorization, while 198 opposed. In an email to members, the WGA said that the results sent a clear message and set new records “for both participation and the percentage of support in a strike authorization vote.”

If you were worried that film and TV were about to become a wasteland of AI-generated dialogue, then know that the Writers Guild of America, East, is in your corner. Earlier today, Variety reported that the WGA had floated a proposal in its contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that would allow writers and studios to use AI tools in limited capacities. This led to much consternation from the writing community, which understandably feels under threat over the rapid adoption of AI as a writing tool.

Notably, as we reported below, the Variety report did not acknowledge whether scripts wholly generated by AI would be allowed. Since then, the WGA has released a statement on Twitter that, while not directly countering Variety’s report, does clarify the union’s stance. “Companies can’t use AI to undermine writers’ working standards including compensation, residuals, separated rights and credits,” the Twitter thread begins.