In recent months, the Writers Guild of America strike has had a major impact on the entertainment industry. As SAG-AFTRA also went on strike, most film and television projects have ceased production entirely, with the exception of a few independent projects that have had tentative deals. On Monday, SAG-AFTRA announced (via diversity) another change to the Interim Agreement rules, indicating that it will no longer authorize designs written under a WGA contract and that they will be produced in the United States.
“The WGA has advised us that this change will help them implement their strike strategy and we believe it will not affect the usefulness and effectiveness of ours,” SAG-AFTRA said in a win-win statement.
Since the start of the strike, SAG-AFTRA has entered into preliminary agreements for a total of 207 projects, allowing filming to continue during the strike. These include Anne Hathaway’s Mother Mary, the CW series The Chosen One, and Rebel Wilson’s The Cruel Bride. A24, which produces Mother Mary and has no ties to AMPTP, also received the approval of Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega’s Death of a Unicorn. This new SAG-AFTRA change will not affect 2017 production.
When did the WGA and AMPTP meet?
Late last week, WGA executives sent out an email to members informing them that a meeting with AMPTP had taken place earlier in the day, resulting in the studios receiving a new package of proposals. The WGA is expected to respond to AMPTP next week, although it is not known if this could lead to a deal between the two parties. Again, WGA officials confirmed that if a deal was made with the WGA, the writers would not begin work until both strikes were resolved.
“We will evaluate their proposal and, after evaluating it, we will return to them with a response from the WGA next week,” the corporation members said. “Sometimes negotiations can make more progress if they are conducted without a detailed description of the steps of each side and subsequent public scrutiny of the significance of these steps. This will be our approach, at least for now, until something meaningful comes up to report, or until management uses the media or industry surrogates to try and influence the narrative.
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