Many Writers See Tentative Deal as Blueprint for Hollywood’s Future
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“It’s a road map. People are going to study it like the Torah.”
That’s how one prolific showrunner describes the Writers Guild of America’s tentative new three-year Minimum Basic Agreement, a deal that was reached as Yom Kippur, the day of atonement that serves as the holiest of Jewish holidays, was beginning as the sun set Sunday after five frantic days of bargaining with chiefs from four major conglomerates and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
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The tentative agreement, which is now with guild members for ratification, was reached mere days before the 148-day-long work stoppage officially snapped 1988’s record 154-day strike to become the longest in WGA history.
The guild gained protections against the use of artificial intelligence, data transparency and residuals tied to streaming success as well as guarantees for the minimum size of writers rooms among a cadre of other topics as its negotiating committee sought protections for every sector of its membership.
“The deal is glorious, and so damn gratifying,” former WGA president Howard Rodman tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Unlike previous negotiations, there were significant if not groundbreaking gains in every single area: theatrical, streaming, ad-supported streaming, linear television, foreign residuals, writing teams. The ‘black box’ of the streamers has been cracked open: we now have a viewership-based streaming bonus. The guild can regulate the use of AI on MBA-covered projects. And in terms of sheer dollars? The contract provides more than two and a half times as much money in writers pockets as the companies were willing to part with on May 1.”
“What I really like is that there isn’t a single area of interest that we were looking to make a gain on that we didn’t get a gain on,” adds a prolific showrunner, who declined to go on record as the deal still needed to be formally approved. “Is it where it needs to be? No, but we’ve set the precedent and that’s an area we can continue to negotiate on in subsequent cycles. Overall, that’s the hugest thing: it’s not just about the money, it’s settling all the right precedents.”
Many writers who spoke with THR after guild leaders officially called an end to the strike Tuesday say the litmus test was if the contract was worth the pain that came with five months and two unions going out on strike.
“It’s an excellent contract, which dealt with a series of things that needed to be dealt with in streaming in particular that … can help writers continue to pursue the craft,” says John Wells, a former WGA West president whose credits include Shameless and Maid. “The guaranteed second draft for screenplays we tried to get for 20 years. This was the Netflix strike. They created a model that others started to follow. If they’d been allowed to become the industry standard, it would have decimated the creative ranks. These [gains] were necessary to say that can’t be what the future is for creatives.”
Abbott Elementary exec producer Justin Halpern, who is on the WGA’s board, says the north star driving the guild before negotiations began was to win back enough so that writers can afford to live and work in L.A. without scrambling to piece jobs together. “The biggest win is a collective win of all these policies,” Halpern says. “When we introduced the proposals, they’re interlocking. They don’t work if one or two pieces are missing. We needed to win parts of all of it. … Collectively, all these proposals together go a long way toward that. There are some things we desperately wanted that we couldn’t get all the way to. But we got more than it we thought we might.”
Many writers who spoke with THR singled out one key point the WGA was unable to secure in the right to honor other picket lines. SAG-AFTRA remains on strike and the Teamsters and IATSE have deals coming up and members of all three other unions regularly showed up in force on the picket lines. “I really wanted the ability to have those protections,” Halpern says.
Data transparency was also a key issue that scribes felt could have been an area where the guild was able to secure more. The tentative deal states that AMPTP member companies will provide the WGA —subject to a confidentiality agreement — the “total number of hours streamed, both domestically and internationally, of self-produced high budget streaming programs” made specifically for streaming platforms with “aggregated information that can be shared.”
“The streamers have used the lack of transparency to their advantage in negotiations and that’s still an issue,” says Shawn Ryan, the showrunner behind Netflix’s The Night Agent and a former member of the WGA’s negotiating committee. “What the guild has done here has cracked the door open as all these places seemingly try to transition to more ad-based tiers that earn them even more revenue per customer than the subscription model. That door will get cracked open more. The door didn’t get slammed open in this negotiation but it’s the start of a process that will lead to the door getting cracked open wider.”
Veteran showrunner Mike Royce, a frequent staple on the picket line at Fox where he averaged more than 15,000 steps a day, says the proposed new MBA “looks pretty fucking great” and celebrated the “gigantic breakthrough” of securing any sort of data transparency from the streamers. “This is the first time they’ve agreed to do this in the USA. It’s unclear where transparency is headed but more will be built in as we go forward. They got what they could and it’s groundbreaking.”
Another veteran showrunner dubs the WGA’s transparency deal point as if everyone agreed to “go to a place and look under a cloth” but still celebrated the right for guild members to even do so. “Getting details on how successful a streaming show is and will always be fraught but this feels significant,” this writer says. Adds a drama showrunner: “That’s an area where it feels like in the Minimum Basic Agreement, we’re leaning on the word ‘minimum.’ … That being said, it sets the precedent that some information is better than none. By creating the new performance-based tier, [the AMPTP has] accepted our argument that there should be a performance-based tier. Is it what we all wanted to see? Certainly not. But it’s a start.”
Royce, who sounded jubilant when he spoke with THR late Tuesday, singles out the fact that value of the deal is worth “three times the amount of money than we’ve gotten in previous deals.” The WGA’s initial proposal as of May 1, when the strike began, was valued at $429 million annually. The AMPTP’s May 1 counteroffer clocked in at $86 million per year. According to the WGA’s tentative agreement, the new MBA is worth $233 million annually. “The guild constructed this interlocking series of protections against us becoming gig workers,” he says. “It was [the guild] asking for a way to preserve our profession and help save the companies from themselves.”
The protections around AI, meanwhile, were celebrated by many WGA members who felt the language in the tentative deal was a “reasonable.”
“If we’re going to regulate AI, this is the right way — putting limits on how and under what circumstances AI can be used and, when it is used, how it’s going to be treated,” notes Marc Guggenheim (Legends of Tomorrow). Ryan stopped short of calling the AI contract language a loss but considers it a “temporary stalemate.” “There are a lot of things around AI where I don’t think this is the final word on it. That area bears watching and diligence going forward,” he says, adding that he also would have liked to have secured “larger pay raises than what the DGA negotiated to help make up for inflation and wage stagnation.”
Halpern, the WGA board member, says the negotiating committee wanted to make sure the guild was able to “adapt and evolve” with the technology and not limit writers in the event that a decade from now, they’d face consequences from being too rigid in the negotiation. He points to former WGA president Patric Verrone’s efforts work with “new media” (now known as streaming) during the 2007-08 strike in which the negotiating committee fought for protections for something that wasn’t as “tangible and clear” at the time. “Now, over half our members work on a contract that Patric and that negotiating committee won in 2007 that they had to eat shit for several years after because it didn’t pay off right away,” Halpern notes. “They changed the culture of the guild and they turned us into what we are now as a guild and that has won us this amazing contract.”
Screenwriters, too, also hailed the proposed contract terms including a guaranteed second step payment and streaming residuals. “This is a huge accomplishment. This is how good writers are created, by having the ability to stay on a project for a while. And it cuts down on the free work that is forced on writers, especially new ones,” Mark Swift, who penned Freddy vs. Jason and Baywatch with Damien Shannon, says of the guaranteed second step. “Another big win [is] guaranteeing you’ll get paid faster. The studios won’t be able to hold up payments and that will also help fight free work. For newer writers, this is a very big deal and probably affects them the most. These two wins give writers protections and regains ground on issues that had been lost in recent years.”
Adds a longtime comedy writer: “I am so relieved that this deal has improved pay conditions for comedy/variety writers and screenwriters, who can get left out in our streaming-series-oriented environment. I love the script fees for staff writers — a practice that so many people used to get fucked by in the name of gratitude. And I’m really impressed by the AI provisions and data transparency, which in a matter of years if not months, I think will be things we look back at and say phew, thank God that got addressed.”
Ryan, who was on the last five negotiating committees for the WGA, also hails securing script fee payments for staff writers as a huge win. “We banged our head against the wall so many times on that,” he says as he singled out key gains for writing teams to get health and pension contributions individually as well as the thorny issue of minimum staffing. “How many people said it was a non-starter and it wouldn’t happen five months ago?”
Ryan, along with several others who spoke with THR, was also proud that the term of “showrunner” was now defined in the MBA. Defining showrunner as a writer has become a necessary protection in a world in which companies like Marvel and Lucasfilm shift to “head writers” and where studios can insert directors and non-writing producers to cut costs and take control.
As for what’s next, many scribes addressed the solidarity that they say helped the guild sustain the financial, emotional and physical toll of the five-month strike. Halpern encourages WGA members to “stay vigilant, active and engaged,” while Ryan hopes members of the AMPTP learned that the “WGA is a better friend than enemy” and hopes that Hollywood’s studios and streamers “treat us like that next time.”
“The thing that pisses me off, that maybe I’ll never get over, is the studios could have avoided a strike and just given this to us May 1,” says another TV writer.
Adds Rodman, the former WGA topper: “What this contract asserts is quietly stunning: that even in a broken industry, a career as a writer is possible, is sustainable. That the thread did not snap on our watch. We do this for those who come after, just as those who came before provided for us. It would be my hope that the WGA’s victory here — leaving no one behind — helps SAG-AFTRA achieve a contract that addresses their needs as this one addresses ours.”
Katie Kilkenny, Mikey O’Connell, Tyler Coates and Borys Kit contributed reporting.
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