‘BMF’ Producer Accused of Threatening Striking Writers With His Vehicle Suspended

Lesley Goldberg
·4 min read

A producer on the Starz/Lionsgate drama BMF has been suspended from the 50 Cent-produced series after clashing with striking writers outside the show’s Atlanta set.

“We take acts of intimidation and threats of violence seriously and investigate them thoroughly. As we continue to investigate, we have sent home the individual involved,” a Lionsgate rep said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The alleged incident occurred Thursday afternoon in Georgia, where BMF (as in Black Mafia Family) was in production on the third season of the series based on the lives of two brothers who founded an influential crime organization in 1980s Detroit. Writer Brian Egeston, who documented the alleged incident on Twitter, claims BMF’s Ian Woolf sped toward him and other writers in his SUV and stopped short in what he dubbed as an “intimidation” tactic.

“As I marched with the WGA in a peaceful protest, similar to the giants who have walked the very streets where you almost committed manslaughter, you chose to — in your own words — ‘Tried to scare you,’” Egeston wrote as part of a thread on the alleged incident.

Gabriel Alejandro Garza, a guild member working as a WGA strike captain at the location where the confrontation occurred, said Woolf looked directly at him and sped toward himself and Egeston a second time. “Woolf did not turn to enter the parking lot during this second move. He was looking directly at us the entire time and kept his vehicle pointed at us,” Garza explained.

Woolf later approached Garza and Egeston and, according to the strike captain, “eventually admitted loudly, ‘I was trying to scare you!’” Garza says he has video of the interaction in which Woolf allegedly confesses that he tried to intimidate the striking writers not once but twice. Writer Diya Mishra voiced support for Egeston and tweeted that she witnessed Woolf’s confession, which she dubbed as being “completely without remorse.”

“Workers should not be threatened with physical harm when exercising their right to publicly protest and picket against unfair wages and working conditions,” the WGA said in a statement to THR. “Anyone who harms or threatens to harm a member or supporter of the Writers Guild on a picket line should be held responsible for their actions. The WGA is working closely with members who were endangered during this incident to hold this individual accountable.”

It’s unclear if Woolf, who did not immediately respond to THR’s request for comment, is still being paid as the WGA and Lionsgate investigate the matter. Also unclear is if Egeston (Tyler Perry’s House of Payne) and Garza (The Flash) plan to file a police report about the incident.

According to IMDb, Woolf has been a producer on BMF since the pilot. His credits also include working as a unit production manager on the former Audience Network drama Mr. Mercedes, which revolved around a retired detective who was haunted by the unsolved case of a man who drove a stolen Mercedes through a line of job-seekers at a local fair, killing 16 of them.

“What you did today on Hank Aaron Drive and blocks from the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr….was hateful,” Egeston wrote. “When you pointed your SUV at me as though it were a weapon and slammed the breaks within six feet of writers, I felt the hate and aggression of scenarios similar to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and others who have been harmed at the hands of hate-filled oppressors.”

Writer Tom Smuts witnessed the confrontation and said in a Twitter thread Friday morning he watched Woolf plead with the Teamsters of Local 828 to cross the guild’s picket line and they refused, only to do the work himself. Smuts is married to WGA West president Meredith Stiehm.

The Writers Guild of America went out on strike May 2 as members are seeking wage increases, safeguards from the use of AI and staffing protections, among other things, from Hollywood’s studios and streamers. The guild has been striking in front of studios and production hubs, both on studio-related lots and on-location filming. A number of films and TV series have been shut down because IATSE and Teamsters members refuse to cross the picket lines.

Striking writers have taken to Twitter to share their experiences from the picket lines, with details including car accidents and improperly labeled neutral gates. At many locations, members of the WGA take photos or otherwise document the license plates of vehicles who enter neutral gates to ensure the identities of those crossing the picket line.

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