As the Writers’ Guild of America enters its fourth month of strike, the long-term effects of the movement start coming and studios’ strategies to make writers desperate to accept any deal become even more intense. This time, high-profile writers have been targeted by Warner Bros. Television Group – overall deals with writers-turned-producers like J.J. Abrams (Fringe) Mindy Kaling (The Sex Lives of College Girls) and Chuck Lorre (The Big Bang Theory) have been suspended.
The suspension of the deals was unveiled by The Hollywood Reporter, which cites sources that revealed that the upper echelon of writers has been hit with suspension of their overall deals pretty early into the strike – Lorre, for example, who has been with Warner for decades, had his contract “quietly suspended” back in May.
Other top writers who had the same experience are prolific show creators for Warner Bros. Television. Greg Berlanti is frequently associated with the superhero universe he established for The CW (one of the most recent being Superman and Lois), while Bill Lawrence created successful comedy shows like Scrubs and Ted Lasso. John Wells has also been with the Warner Group for a long while, having written for acclaimed series like ER and The West Wing.
The suspension of the overall deals for the six high-profile writers does not equal termination, though. Kaling, Lorre, Berlanti, Wells, Lawrence and Abrams oversee the creation of several shows and Warner Bros. Television will probably sit back down with them to renegotiate terms after the strike is over. At the same time, all of them are working mostly at producer capacity – a segment that is currently not on strike – meaning that they had to continue developing projects through the strike.
Kaling, Abrams and Lorre Are Not The First Ones to See Their Deals Suspended
The six prolific writers’ deals are not the first ones to get suspended. Other showrunners also saw this happen with their deals as soon as the strike started, and high-profile creators have already spoken out about what’s happened with their contracts: Back in July, Game of Thrones author and House of the Dragon producer George R.R. Martin revealed that his deal was suspended as well.
Back when the strike started, it was known that the bigger effects of the overall stoppage would only be felt in the long-term. Studios have tried to dismiss the strike’s power by suggesting that their plans have not been impacted by writers who decided to stop working. However, we see the opposite take shape as studios start modifying their release schedules and hurriedly work out interim deals so that some high-profile titles can continue making them money. The AMPTP (the entity that represents studios) had already suggested that they’d only want to sit down and negotiate with writers by late October, so it’s possible that their strategy becomes more ruthless in the next couple of months.
Stick with Collider to discover news about the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike as soon as they are announced.
via Collider