Tentative deal reached to end Hollywood writers’ strike - no deal yet for actors

Placards are gathered together at the close of a picket by members of The Writers' Guild of America outside Walt Disney Studios. Photo / AP

Union leaders and Hollywood studios reached a tentative agreement today to end a historic screenwriters’ strike after nearly five months, though no deal is yet in the works for striking actors.

The Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) announced the deal in a joint statement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the group that represents studios, streaming services and production companies in negotiations.

“WGA has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP,” the guild said in an email to members. “This was made possible by the enduring solidarity of WGA members and extraordinary support of our union siblings who joined us on the picket lines for over 146 days.”

The three-year contract agreement — settled on after five marathon days of renewed talks by negotiators WGA and the AMPTP — must be approved by the guild’s board and members before the strike officially ends.

In a longer message from the guild shared by members on social media, the writers were told the strike is not over and no one was to return to work until hearing otherwise, but picketing is to be suspended immediately.

The terms of the deal were not immediately announced. The tentative deal to end the last writers’ strike, in 2008, was approved by more than 90 per cent of members.

The agreement comes just five days before the strike would’ve become the longest in the guild’s history, and the longest Hollywood strike more than 70 years.

As a result of the agreement, nightly network shows including NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! could return to the air within days.

But as writers prepare to potentially crack open their laptops again, it’s far from back to business as usual in Hollywood, as talks have not yet resumed between studios and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Crew members left with no work by the stoppage will remain unemployed for now.

“Sag-Aftra congratulates the WGA on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP after 146 days of incredible strength, resiliency and solidarity on the picket lines,” the actors’ union said in a statement. “While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP’s tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”

The statement said the guild continues “to urge the studio and streamer CEOs and the AMPTP to return to the table and make the fair deal that our members deserve and demand”.

The proposed solution to the writers’ strike came after talks resumed on Wednesday for the first time in a month. Chief executives including Bob Iger of Disney, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery and Donna Langley of NBCUniversal reportedly took part in the negotiations directly.

It was reached without the intervention of federal mediators or other government officials, which had been necessary in previous strikes.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement congratulating the two sides on the deal and said she is hopeful the same can happen soon with actors.

“Now, we must focus on getting the entertainment industry, and all the small businesses that depend on it, back on their feet,” Bass said.

About 11,500 members of the Writers’ Guild of America walked off the job on May 2 over issues of pay, the size of writing staffs on shows and the use of artificial intelligence in the creation of scripts. Actors, who joined the writers on strike in July, have their own issues, but there have been no discussions about resuming negotiations with their union yet.

The writers’ strike immediately sent late-night talk shows and Saturday Night Live into hiatus, and has since sent dozens of scripted shows and other productions into limbo, including forthcoming seasons of Netflix’s Stranger Things, HBO’s The Last of Us and ABC’s Abbot Elementary, and films including Deadpool 3 and Superman: Legacy. The Emmy Awards were also pushed from September to January.

More recently, writers had been targeting talk shows that were working around strike rules to return to air, including The Drew Barrymore Show, Real Time With Bill Maher and The Talk. All reversed course in the face of picketing and pressure, and are likely to quickly return now.

The combined strikes made for a pivotal moment in Hollywood as creative labor faced off against executives in a business transformed and torn by technology, from the seismic shift to streaming in recent years to the potentially paradigm-shifting emergence of AI in the years to come.

Screenwriters had traditionally gone on strike more than any other segment of the industry, but had enjoyed a relatively long stretch of labor peace until spring negotiations for a new contract fell apart. The walkout was their first since 2007 and their longest since 1988.

On July 14, more than two months into the strike, the writers got a dose of solidarity and star power — along with a whole lot of new picketing partners — when they were joined by 65,000 striking film and television actors.

It was the first time the two groups had been on strike together since 1960. In that walkout, the writers’ strike started first and ended second. This time, studios opted to deal with the writers first.

The AMPTP first reached out to suggest renewing negotiations in August. The meetings were short, infrequent and not productive, and talks went silent for another month.