Dispatches From The Picket Lines, Day 24: Sen. Gillibrand Addresses NY Crowd; In L.A., Lil Wayne Sends Burgers, A Robot Pickets & A Marching Band Plays Outside Warners & NBCU

Making their own Fight Club. The highly anticipated queer comedy Bottoms follows two high school girls who try to hook up with cheerleaders by starting a self-defense group.

Jason Sudeikis holds on to his sign as he joins the WGA Strike in Los Angeles on Monday (June 5).

Apple may have entered the virtual reality arena earlier today with the unveiling of a new platform and headset, launched with the help of Disney boss Bob Iger, but in the real world it spent the day being targeted by writers.

WGA negotiating committee co-chair Chris Keyser issued a clarion call to members and supporters earlier today.

The Weeknd has dropped a brand new song with two big stars attached!

It was Pride and Drag Queen picket day in Los Angeles, where around 300 people hit up Warner Bros. Discovery to highlight their issues as the strike marches into its second month.

Theo James has been asked ad nauseam about his prosthetic penis in “The White Lotus,” and Meghann Fahy is starting to feel left out. “Nobody ever asks me about my prosthetic,” she says with a laugh. When the two reunite over Zoom to discuss their roles, they’re perfectly in sync and often answer questions in unison, evoking their characters’ deliciously duplicitous cat-and- mouse relationship. In the second season of Mike White’s hit HBO drama, they star as cunning finance businessman Cameron and chipper stay-at-home-mom Daphne, who are vacationing with strait-laced couple Ethan and Harper (Will Sharpe and Aubrey Plaza, respectively). After engaging in the world’s most elaborate “Wife Swap” plot, they depart Sicily as loved-up as ever — and perhaps rubbing off on their friends.

As one of Reality TV’s royal family crossed the line, striking film and television writers joined forces on Wednesday in New York City with another group of culture workers involved in a pay dispute: musicians. 

The writers strike has entered its fifth week and is about to enter its second month and shows no sign of abating.

Jason Sudeikis and the cast of “Ted Lasso” are backing writers.

As the Writers Guild of America strike continues with no end in sight, rumours are swirling that the Directors Guild of America and SAG-ACTRA will be following suit when those unions’ contracts come up within the next few weeks.

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer Colin Farrell, Mariska Hargitay, Danny Strong, Paula Pell, Rachel Dratch, Michael Kelly and Craig Zobel were among the stars who came out to the writers strike picket line outside Paramount Global’s New York City office in Times Square Thursday. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D.-N.Y., and local politicians spoke at the event in support of the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) cause against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) that has led to a four-week-and-counting work stoppage due to the organizations’ inability to ink a new contract May 1. “This is about what’s right. We’ve seen income inequality grow exponentially over the last decade; and in your business, it has never been more present,” Gillibrand said to the crowd, filled with not only WGA members, but also those from SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and Teamsters, among other unions. “We see writers working hard every day to produce content and we have an unfair playing field. Not only does AI want to displace our writers, they simply can’t. AI generates content based on what’s been written before the work you did last year, and the year before. It’s not original. It’s not imaginative. It doesn’t come from the human heart. It’s not about a human experience. It’s not about what people actually want to learn about or know about or see or experience. That is what writers bring to the equation every single time. So this strike is so important for the future of this country. It’s about the value of workers; workers and what they create is fundamentally valuable.”

As the WGA strike entered its fourth week, Tony Kushner swore, Steve Earle sang, Wanda Sykes led union chants and Busy Philipps told CEO jokes for more than 1,000 demonstrators and hundreds of onlookers who filled the street in front of NBCUniversal headquarters Tuesday in Midtown Manhattan. 

Striking writers in New York made a bid on Monday to disrupt work on American Horror Story by picketing outside a production facility in Queens where the popular FX series known for its macabre plot lines and star-studded casts is filming season 12.

The last time WGA picket lines formed in 2007, writers didn’t have an efficient way to communicate with fellow strikers about group meet-ups, illegal productions, and all those clever placards. The only place they could turn to for regular information was this very space, in which the late Nikki Finke would post regular missives about strike action, the broken-off negotiations and the financial impact of the 100-day work stoppage.

There was come old-school writer cred on the picket line outside the Fox lot in Century City today. David E. Kelley, he of the 11 Emmys and 30 nominations, is a veteran of multiple WGA strikes going back to 1988. Introducing himself as “David E. Kelley, old writer,” the Love & Death creator — whose many credits also include Big Little Lies, Big Sky, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Undoing, The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Picket Fences — told Deadline why he’s striking this time.

Picketers gathered outside Warner Bros. in Burbank today found themselves buoyed by a unique presence: Flavor Flav. The hip-hop icon-turned-reality star showed up to cheers from the assembled WGA supporters.

With just the CW left tomorrow, the near-talent-free upfronts are winding down, and shows are still being shuttered in New York City, while on the picket lines in LA there was Mariachism, tacos, tunes and some Mandalorians to galvanize the troops.

not feel at ease overlooking the French Riviera? Though the films are the main event, luxurious fashion is the .Year after year, celebrities serve iconic looks that live in my head rent-free all year round. In 2022, Viola Davis shone like the sun in a bright yellow Alexander McQueen gown and eye-catching Boucheron jewels.

It was a tale of two coasts today, as WGA picketers and their allies targeted Disney’s upfront presentation in New York and also the company’s Burbank lot in Los Angeles. And the two scenes were very different.