Pencils Up?
It’s been a long, reality-TV-ridden road, but it looks like the writing staffs that make Hollywood go are about to go back to work. The Writers’ Guild of America has tentatively accepted a deal offered by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers; if a vote on Tuesday goes well—and it seems that it will—the writers will return to work on Wednesday. The strike continues on an official basis until then.
The contract guarantees writers a flat rate of pay for content streamed online for the first two years of the contract; in the third year, the rate goes up to 2% of the revenues earned by the networks and studios.
It seems like everyone’s breathing a sigh of relief: the writers get their jobs back, everyone ese in Hollywood gets their jobs back, the producers get new content, Jon Stewart gets to have writers and actual actors present when he hosts the Oscars, and viewers have something to watch besides back-to-back episodes of The Biggest Loser. Even next year’s Oscar folks should be thanking their lucky stars: a continued writers’ strike would surely have made a dent in the crop of award-worthy movies for 2008. As it is, things should pick up quickly.
In the mean time, we’ll be here, waiting for American Gladiator to end.
writers’ strike, wga, amptp, wga strike, academy awards, oscars, jon stewart
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