Strikes

After a paralyzing 118 days, the actors’ strike is now, finally, looking like it’s over, following hard in the footsteps of the similarly resolved WGA strike a couple of weeks ago. The SAG are claiming victory over the studios, who took an exceptionally long time to ratify demands that included everything from increased fees for work appearing on streaming services, to protections regarding the use of AI, to reproduce actors’ images on screen. There were many times during the strike when it looked as if both sides were simply too far apart to achieve a resolution. In the end, money talks: the major Hollywood studios and streaming services realized that without the swift agreement they needed, there would be a drought of product in the marketplace next year, and beyond.

At last, there is the Hollywood equivalent of white smoke in the Vatican. After nearly five months, the writers’ strike has at last — tentatively — been resolved, as the Writers’ Guild of America have agreed to terms with the studios, as represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The terms have not yet been publicly disclosed, but are said to be surprisingly generous, and favor the writers. It has been suggested that their major demands have all been met, including improved residual payments on streaming services, an increased number of writers employed on shows and, most importantly for many both financially and artistically, a curb on the way in which AI might be used to generate scripts and screenplays.

The news that Denis Villeneuve’s keenly anticipated Dune sequel is to be delayed from its previously announced November release date until next March is both unwelcome and far from unexpected. It also brings back memories of the pandemic, when films were routinely postponed for months, even years; it is not hard to remember how the Bond film No Time To Die ended up having its original release date of April 2020 put back until October 2021, by which time Billie Eilish’s theme song had acquired all the familiarity of a much-loved old standard, and the film’s trailers had long since melted into ubiquity. And countless equally delayed pictures simply flopped at the box office, as audiences stayed away, bored by seeing the same marketing materials forever.

When TV is in trouble, it runs to one group. They usually have big hair and even bigger silicon boobs. They also possess filthy mouths, drink rosé like water and have rich husbands. They are the Housewives — and in dry spells, on Sunday afternoons, or in the middle of a writers’ and actors’ strike, you will see their ilk plastered on your screen more than the news. There are plenty to choose from: there are eleven Real Housewives franchises in the US, twenty international versions and twenty-seven spin offs.  But will the Housewives continue to be the entertainment executive's solution to a strike-induced content drought? Or are they set to join the picket lines? The simultaneous Hollywood writer and actor strikes which started in May are gaining traction and glamor.

It is the best of times and the worst of times in Hollywood, where the phenomenal success of Barbenheimer elevated both movies to soaring box offices even as virtually the entire entertainment industry is on strike. But the success of these two films — one backed by the branding power of nostalgia and the desire to wear the color pink, the other by one of the last mainstream auteur directors with the power to do whatever he wants — also contrasts with the big problem facing the strikers. We know how many people saw these movies. We don't know how many people see much of anything else. The great cord-cutting has led us into a world with unprecedented opportunities to make all kinds of content.