A 'Messy' Post-Strike Environment: Welcome Back, Writers
'It's been pandemonium, in a good way,' one TV scribe tells me
When the Writers Guild of America declared the nearly five-month strike over at midnight last Tuesday, writer David Steinberg (No Good Nick) and his wife and creative partner Keetgi Kogan began “writing furiously” for the first time in 148 days.
“It's been pandemonium, in a good way,” he says.
They had sold two projects right before the strike started in May — a one-hour TV pilot and a Hallmark movie — and now a producer was telling them they needed to go, go, go on a treatment for the film. Steinberg and Kogan divvied up the work quickly: he got started on Act 2 while she wrote Act 1, then they swapped and rewrote each other, sorting out the 15-page outline in mere days.
“I think we had four weeks on our contract,” he says. “We did it in like, I don't know, nine days.”
In the immediate wake of the strike, the guild’s 11,500 writers are kicking off their Hokas and firing up Final Draft, shifting from catchy picket signs to clever scripted lines.
“Everyone’s getting their sea legs back,” says showrunner Andrea Thornton Bolden (Nancy Drew). “We’re all in the same place, the Wild West for the business. No one really knows what’s going to happen. It’s been quite a year.”
One high-level studio executive tells me they’ve been receiving drafts and story outlines as they figure out how to reboot things, but aren’t yet hearing pitches or taking pitches out to buyers. (Maybe by the end of October, I’m told, as buyers sort out their schedules.)
“There's people that were immediately busy,” says Steinberg. “But then there's a lot of people who are just like, let's wait until the dust settles.”
Writers who had sold projects just prior to the strike in May are dusting off notes. Staffers on current shows are now back in writers rooms or planning their Mendocino Farms lunch orders as they wait for them to reopen. But the development arena is still in a bit more of a holding pattern, several writers tell me.
“Those of us in development have to wait a touch for the shows already in production or that were greenlit,” says writer and actor Dani Fernandez.
“I have so much work to catch up on,” Darrin Dortch (Kings of Napa, Claws) tells me. “And the post-strike market is very messy when it comes to selling, development and especially staffing. Things are moving slowly, but myself and multiple writers are hoping it picks up so we can make writer money.”
Now conversation is slowly turning back to the usual topics. For instance: What kind of shows are TV buyers looking for?
“There’s a bullseye on anything that’s kind of propulsive action,” the studio exec tells me. “The Hijacks and the Night Agents. The premium procedural. A combination of antiheroes and soaps with a crime element. Family soaps. Romance. Big ideas, things that feel like they could travel internationally… Just about everyone is chasing commerciality.”
For the writers, there’s a comfort and an excitement in getting back to work. But that doesn’t mean things are going back to exactly the way they were.
“There’s still that same sense of solidarity and camaraderie,” says Thornton Bolden. “That’s what blew me away the most [about the strike]. It sparked conversations about how we treat each other. Lower and middle-level [writers] were the backbone of this strike. You had this massive successful strike by people not at the top yet.”
And many showrunners aren’t forgetting that.
Says Thornton Bolden: “Walking side by side for five months, it takes away those stratifications.”
ICYMI in Strike News
The film and TV industry lost another 7,000 jobs in September, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since May, the count has dropped by 45,000 amid the strikes. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Broadcast networks appear to be eyeing early 2024 returns for its scripted comedy and drama series, though timing all depends still on the resolution of the actors strike. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Saturday Night Live will be returning on Oct. 14 with former cast member Pete Davidson as host thanks to the series’ coverage under the Network Code Agreement, not the contract SAG-AFTRA is striking against. “The majority of our members who are regular cast on ‘Saturday Night Live’ had contractual obligations to the show prior to the strike,” said an actors guild letter from Wednesday. “Many are under option agreements that require them to return to the show if the producers exercise their option, which the producers have done.” (New York Times)
Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul follow-up — a sci-fi series set for Apple TV+ — would have been in the middle of shooting right now if not for the strike. Instead, the writers room, which was almost done breaking the first season, will resume on Monday with a shoot date intended for this winter. “We lost a lot of momentum, certainly. I can’t even remember where we were exactly,” Gilligan said. “So I’m going to be spending this week reading through previous episodes and old notes to figure out where we stand.” (Variety)
Additional reporting for ICYMI in Strike News by Matthew Frank.
Disclosure: Elaine Low is an inactive member of SAG-AFTRA.