Hollywood Writers Have Gone ON STRIKE, ALL MOVIES AND SHOWS Delayed!

Yeah, this isn’t good for anyone hoping to enjoy their summers with some T.V. and movies. The writers of Hollywood, otherwise known as the Writers Guild of America (WGA), have officially went on strike after failing to come to terms with the major studios, leaving all shows in purgatory until the strike ends.

I really do have mixed feelings about this strike.

So, as everyone with even the slightest interest in cinema has probably seen by now, the talks between the Writers Guild of America and the major studios have completely collapsed and the over 6,000 writers that make up the vast majority of Hollywood have now gone on strike. Or, in other words, the privileged elite are once again bickering over how much money to pay one another.

Okay, being serious, I fully support any laborer in their attempts to make more money as in 95% of all strike cases, the laborers are usual in the right when wages are involved. Whether it’s an Amazon driver, a factory worker, a plumber, or a Hollywood writer, everyone should be making at least the minimum to financially support themselves and their families.

You can’t have workers leaving in slums or hovels due to their wages being divvied up between taxes, far too expensive rent prices, far too high traveling costs, etc. as their crucial work deserves to be financially rewarded with enough money for them to buy/live in middle/working class houses. You know, what every American (these are mostly American writers and/or working for American studios, so I’ll talk in American jargon) aspires to achieve.

But, according to everything I’ve read so far, this situation is a little more complex than just workers demanding for better pay.

I’ll list a few of the articles I read about this situation down below, but according to People.com and CBS News, these Hollywood writers are actually demanding for better job security and residual payments from streaming shows and movies than a pay rise. Of course, getting paid more is still an aspect to this strike, but from what I’ve seen, the average Hollywood writer earns $131k/year working on a 29-week network show and $90K/year when working on a streaming show.

Seeing as how the median salary of the entire US is $56,420/year (according to SoFi.com), median household income of California is $78,672/year (according to SmartAsset.com), and the average household income of a person in Los Angeles is $101K/year, these purported writer salaries don’t seem so oppressive. And especially so when you consider how many crap T.V. shows and movies were released in 2022.

Seriously, out of the 449 movies officially released in 2022, only 100 of them received a critical score of 90% or higher (22% of all movies) on Rotten Tomatoes and just 178 of the movies scored 80% or higher (39% of all movies). As for the 599 official T.V. shows released in 2022, just 88 received a critical score of 90% or higher (14% of all shows) on Rotten Tomatoes and only 128 received a critical rating of 80% or higher (21% of all shows).

Obviously, a lot of great shows didn’t receive a score of 80% or higher, but there’s plenty of crap shows that did receive such a ridiculously high critical score. Thus, I think these stats pretty much round out the outliers and proves a large handful of these writers really aren’t pulling their weight when it comes to making good products.

You would never high a plumber, an electrician, or visit a fast-food restaurant that only serve good products anywhere from 14-39% of the time, right?

So, why must these writers get their jobs codified, which is mainly their demands from the studios (ex: better protections from getting fired, increased writer’s rooms, minimum requirements for writers on shows, protection from A.I. technology, the “mini-room” practice abolished, better streaming service residuals, etc.), when the vast majority of their products are sub-par at best?

I get the protections from A.I. technology, but the rest kind of feels like they want the guarantee of not being able to get fired. And, in my personal opinion, that’s ridiculous as if someone is not doing a job to its fullest, then they should be replaced with someone who can until they can do said job better.

I’m just glad House of the Dragon Season 2 has not been impacted by this strike and is still set for a 2024 release date. At least we have one show to look forward to.

Images Source: Featured Image: (Wikimedia Creative Commons License/Author: Oreos) (Oreos, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons)

In Text Image 1: (HBO/Warner Bros. Discovery) (House of the Dragon: Season 1, Episode 1-The Heirs of the Dragon)

Other Sources: (People.com) (Writers Strike 2023 Explained, Including Shows Affected (people.com))

(CBS News) (Writers’ strike: Here’s what to know about the strike and its impact – CBS News)

(SoFi.com) (Average US Salary by State for 2022 | SoFi)

(SmartAssests.com) (Average Salary in California – SmartAsset)