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Queen Bitch

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Posts posted by Queen Bitch

  1. Cautious optimism indeed exists on the lines. The guild and the studios released a joint statement yesterday that talks would resume today, which was a pretty big shift. They agreed to something publicly -- we'll take it!

    Most folks, myself included, have a hard time with the CNBC article stating "the deal will be made today" because it continues by saying "and if it doesn't end TODAY, the strike will continue until the end of the year." (Read: more baseless threats to scare us into taking a shit deal.) So yeah, it reads like something the studios planted. (That being said, why CNBC? They never leak there. Strange.)

    We're also still pretty far apart on several issues, so two days of negotiations to get on the same page sounds like a stretch... but this has never really been about money for the studios. So who knows? 

    Either way, I'll be on the lines later this morning, and then lunch is on Drew Carey. (For those unfamiliar, Drew is the patron saint of the strike, covering meals at two local restaurants. Yes, a lot of us go basically every day.)

     

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  2. After nearly a month waiting for a response from the studios, they've agreed to return to the negotiation table next week. Collective bargaining works, but it's brutal when dealing with bratty billionaire toddlers who've never not gotten their way.

    Also, go get y'alls contract, UAW. Maybe we just went first and I'm really blowing up our self-importance, but I hope our guild has helped pave the way this year for other unions to demand what's theirs and refuse to back down.

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  3. I won't lie -- frustration, fatigue, and anxiety are really piling up. Folks are getting nervous that this thing will drag into the new year.

    Solidarity and our collective resolve, however, sure seem to be intact. 

    Case in point: I was in a meeting with guild leadership a couple nights ago when a hack article dropped suggesting an alleged showrunner defector group had tried to set a meeting with the guild to demand an end to the strike, but leadership had allegedly refused to meet with them. (This is basically what ended the '07/'08 strike. Google "the dirty 30" if you want to read more about it.) Leadership calmly explained what actually happened. I'm omitting details here, but I'll copy/paste some nuggets from an article that dropped days later that tracked with everything they told us. And -- as you'll read below -- another emerging foe in this story? Our own fucking agents. Lotta bad actors forcing us to fold and take a shit deal which, sorry, but we're not doing that.

    Anywho, the cherry on top of the alleged "showrunner defector group" bullshit? There was a showrunner solidarity picket the very next morning, and several hundred showrunners came out to support. The trades are *salivating* for signs of a rift in our lines, of pitting the most successful writers among the least of us... but it's simply not a thing. Not yet, anyway.

    There was also a massive SAG march yesterday from Netflix to Paramount. I didn't have it in me to attend, but the pictures I saw showed a pretty massive turnout. And Fran once again spit fire in her rally speech.

    TL;DR: The studios think they can wait both unions out rather than cut a fair deal, that they can pit the 1% writers against the working class writers, but they've made things so bad for ALL writers these past few years that the strike's hardships are justifiable given the otherwise unsustainable status quo. Also, be wary of agents.

    https://theankler.com/p/friend-or-foe-agents-wga-and-the

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    Case in point: the so-called canceled meeting between WGA leaders and a few top industry showrunners that has sent an information-starved industry, Xanax-ing through a never-ending strike, into an absolute tizzy. How did a proposed meeting between some showrunners and WGA leadership spin so wildly out of control? The answer, according to several sources? Agents.

    “A couple weeks ago, there was a coordinated campaign through the agencies,” a source who supports the guild and is familiar with its thinking tells The Ankler. “They were getting in the ear of clients saying [the WGA] are being crazy, they are totally unreasonable, you have to have a coup.”

    News of what WGA members suspected was the agencies’ efforts to sow dissent made its way into a 450-strong showrunners WhatsApp group. The Ankler has learned that dozens of members, including showrunner Robert King (The Good Wife), sounded an alarm telling members to call their agents. 

    As one person familiar with what happened tells The Ankler, “The message was, ‘they are trying to manipulate us. Call your agents and tell them you're not falling for this bullshit.’”  

    Both Kenya Barris and Noah Hawley were among the showrunners who did request a meeting, and whose names were being used in frantic phone calls among agents and managers burning through town, often in an effort to leverage other showrunners into joining. Communication viewed by The Ankler reveals that at least one party believed that agents were working on behalf of both showrunners to recruit more showrunners. Both are repped by CAA, who declined to comment, as did WME.

     

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    In recent weeks, the WGA grew aware of Writers Guild members signaling to other members that their agents may not be working in their best interests.

    “Keep your radar up,” the WGA wrote to its members last week. “When the companies send messages through surrogates or the press about the unreasonableness of your guild leadership, take those messages as part of a bad-faith effort to influence negotiations and not as the objective truth.”  

    That missive was in part tacit response to the snowballing gossip that the number of showrunners joining a “confrontation” went far beyond just a few members as reporters around town (including those at The Ankler) were called to be told both that the meeting was happening, and later, seemingly erroneously, that the WGA had canceled it. Other names being bandied about, at times as part of recruitment of other showrunners, included Shonda Rhimes, Berlanti and Ryan Murphy. At different points, in the story’s telling, the number of disgruntled showrunners had grown to around 20-30.

    Rhimes in fact has been a vocal supporter of the WGA on the showrunner WhatsApp chain. A spokesperson for Rhimes tells The Ankler that she was never scheduled to be part of that meeting. Simon Halls, who represents both Murphy and Berlanti, tells The Ankler, “Neither Ryan nor Greg were ever part of any effort to have a showrunner meeting with the WGA”

    After The Wrap reported on Sept. 11 that the WGA had refused to meet with the showrunners, resulting in Barris losing his temper with guild leadership, guild members told a different story. Internal WGA communication viewed by The Ankler reveals leadership reinforcing the point that Barris and Hawley themselves backed out of the meeting on their own as to not be viewed as sowing discord. 

     

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  4. Yes, the studios took their offer directly to the media after the WGA refused the offer *as is*, which possibly violates labor laws (not that the govt is going to go after them for it, no CR.) The WGA publicly told its members the offer was "not nothing, but not nearly enough."

    Basically, their offers on room minimums and AI among other things have loopholes you could steer a yacht through. 

  5. Rumor is that Netflix is starting to get very nervous about the strike’s duration impacting the final season of Stranger Things. Contracts have lapsed, and certain actors are vocal about a desire to move on.

    I don’t know *how* nervous, or how it impacted the timing of the studios finally starting negotiations, but it’s juicy and credible so there ya go.

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