Movie Writers Eye Early Walkout
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 28 As Hollywoods studios rush to shoot movies before contracts with actors and directors expire in June, strategists for the industrys writers, facing an earlier deadline of their own, are considering whether to force a stop to the action.
Over the last few days, negotiators for the
Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East, whose contract with entertainment companies expires on Oct. 31, have been taking a hard look at the almost 150 feature films that are candidates for production by early next year, according to people involved with the talks who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
As many as three-quarters of those pictures including projects as prominent as The Justice League of America at Warner Brothers and Another Night, the proposed sequel to
Night at the Museum, at 20th Century Fox appear not to have final scripts.
The question at hand is whether writers, in the event no deal is reached, can inflict maximum damage on their bargaining opponents by striking immediately rather than continuing to work and letting the studios add those films to their strike stockpile.
Negotiators for the guilds and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and networks, are scheduled to meet again on Thursday. Guild negotiators could ask their 12,000 members for strike authorization in advance of the contracts expiration. And they appear to be gathering information that would support a call for a walkout in November, rather than later, when the
Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America will also be in talks.
If writers were to strike before scripts are delivered, tens of millions of dollars already spent, and hundreds of millions in future revenue, could be lost.
Barbara Brogliatti, a spokeswoman for the producers alliance, said the studios had never assumed writers would keep working after the expiration of their contract. Every studio and every network has contingency plans, she said, and those plans assume there could be a walkout on Oct. 31.
Neal Sacharow, director of communications for the Writers Guild of America West, declined to comment.
A walkout by Hollywoods writers would bring the first widespread shutdown of the entertainment industry since a five-month writers strike in 1988. But given the prickly tenor of negotiations so far, companies have been banking movies and television episodes that could fill schedules for months to come. New signals that the guild is ready to strike are just as clearly intended to intensify the pressure on the studios and networks.
Still, guild leaders are looking for signs that some companies, under pressure to book another potential blockbuster or two before production grinds to a halt, have left themselves exposed.
This month the latest round of talks brought little progress on issues like the producers request to restructure the residuals system, or the writers insistence on extending payments for new media. Studios, meanwhile, continued to sign stars and filmmakers for feature films that can begin shooting by early next year and finish before a June 30 contract expiration with the actors and directors unions.
Those feature films are now being seen as high-value targets by those at the writers guild who advocate an immediate walkout should no deal be reached.
Only this month Warner Brothers began a last-minute push to prepare its Justice League of America, a multisuperhero extravaganza to be directed by
George Miller (
Happy Feet, Mad Max) early next year if the studio can get a viable script together, never mind a complicated cast. Kieran and Michele Mulroney, who did uncredited work on
Mr. and Mrs. Smith, have worked on the project, which still does not have a so-called green light to begin production. A spokeswoman for Warner Brothers declined comment.
Similarly, 20th Century Fox is in hurry-up mode on Another Night, the hoped-for sequel to Night at the Museum, which was released late last year and took in more than $250 million at the domestic box office. Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, who wrote the original, have been working on a script. A Fox spokesman declined to comment about the projects status.
Among the many films that have been pushing toward production before June are Wolverine at Fox, G.I. Joe at Paramount,
The Wolf Man at Universal and
The Soloist at DreamWorks. Whether any particular picture remains on track is uncertain, as the status of films changes quickly and often in the face of scheduling pressures.
t: ) but this new writer I'm guessing has been brought in to up the actions scenes since there was plenty of that in SWORDFISH.
