WGA Leaders Say AMPTP Refused To Bargain On Guild’s Core Issues

Sean Penn strongly backed the current Hollywood screenwriters strike while speaking at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday, saying the dispute over artificial intelligence is “a human obscenity.”

Mackenzie Edwards is back, baby!

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Directors Guild of America is continuing its negotiations with the AMPTP, as companies hope to get a deal that could play a role in ending the two-week-old writers strike. Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America told members Monday that the guild is winning the “PR war” against the studios, as members share their stories in the media. “It seems the whole world is on our side,” wrote Lisa Takeuchi Cullen, a WGA East vice president, in an email to members titled “Our Momentum Grows.” “Members’ individual stories of our broken system — of getting by on ten weeks of work a year, of residual checks amounting to pennies — are resonating with the public. They understand we are losing out on the middle-class American Dream. We are not the elite. We are just like them. We are them.”

The Hollywood Reporter, which means the show might not be televised on CBS/Paramount+ as planned, or even happen at all. “The Tony Awards is the biggest commercial for the industry at large, and for a show like mine, which is unbranded and just at the stage where we are finally starting to see some lifeblood, it would be devastating to not be able to be part of this,” Mike Bosner, the lead producer of “Shucked,” one of the five shows nominated for Best New Musical, told The New York Times on Friday.TheWrap has reached out to the Tony Awards PR company, as well as WGA, CBS and Paramount+ for comment.The Tony Awards are scheduled on June 11, but the televised ceremony is imperiled by the W.G.A.

On the West Coast, the chief negotiator for the striking Writers Guild of America, Ellen Stutzman, is more than a week into an existential battle between the 20,000 union members she represents and the movie and television studios that are, for now, not at the bargaining table. 

For the second time in a week, the Writers Guild of America has shuttered Billions.

Six months and counting! Lindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke are inching closer to their wedding day — but their guest list is still being decided.

retweeted a tweet summarizing his comment with the caption “100% #MAGA.”Scarborough echoed journalist Peter Wehner’s tweet connecting what he said to Christianity.“This comment by Tommy Tuberville, who describes himself as ‘a man of Christian faith,’ is disturbing, even by the standards of this morally depraved era,” Wehner wrote on Twitter.Scarborough doubled down on the “morally depraved” phrasing of, asking Willie Geist if he could imagine this happening before Trump was elected president.“Can you imagine, Willie — and I know you can’t so it’s really more of a rhetorical question — pre-Trump, anybody saying that a jury of six men and three women finding someone [liable for] sexual abuse — sexually abusing a woman — would make them want to vote for that person twice,” Scarborough said. “How depraved.

As you have no doubt already heard, the WGA is on strike right now. Just over a week into it, this strike has already caused quite a few disruptions, with productions being halted and development coming to a standstill.

Actor Jonathan Majors was confronted Tuesday with a revised domestic violence charge stemming from a woman’s allegations that the Marvel star twisted her arm, struck her head and shoved her into a vehicle in New York City in March.

When are things not strange in Hollywood? Should we be surprised that there is always some industry or world crises crashing an awards season? Probably not, but it’s been quite a long time since a work stoppage affected the Primetime Emmy Awards. And, as we’ll discuss later, that means while writers form picket lines, actors and directors are still engaged in that Emmy nomination fight.

On the seventh day of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against Hollywood studios, guild leaders from both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, including actors union president Fran Drescher, hit the picket lines at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles.

Another TV shoot has been disrupted by striking writers, Michelle and Robert King’s supernatural drama for Paramount+ Evil, which has been filming its fourth season at Brooklyn Stages in Brooklyn.

“You make billions/pay us some!” striking Writers Guild of America members chanted on the street of New York today near where filming was going on for Showtime’s Billions.

SAG-AFTRA, which starts its contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on June 7, is in “the same boat” with the Writers Guild as it strikes for a fair contract, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told a cheering crowd Wednesday night at the WGA strike rally at the Shrine Auditorium.

reverse what they say is a trend toward exploiting writers to the point that “a gig economy” now exists in Hollywood. They also cite vast paychecks earned by studio bosses at the same time compensation for creatives has declined considerably.In a statement Thursday, The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers pushed back, saying in part that the WGA’s demands are “incompatible with the creative nature of our industry.”Thankfully, we had immediate support from the captain on that shift and then from @TheJudalina And then from a WGA lawyer. I think that's all I can say about it for now… But yeah, it was an interesting day.

Hollywood labor presented a united front last night at the Shrine Auditorium in support of the Writers Guild of America’s ongoing strike, which is now in its third day. That included Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399, whose secretary-treasurer and chief negotiator Lindsay Dougherty had the biggest mic-drop moment in front of the crowd of 1,800 WGA West members.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer The Writers Guild of America West held a rally Wednesday night to demonstrate solidarity with the other Hollywood unions in their collective contract battles against Hollywood’s major employers. About 1,800 guild members attended the meeting at the Shrine Auditorium, and heard from WGA leaders about the reasons behind the two-day old strike. One of the stars of the show, however, was Lindsay Dougherty, the 39-year-old leader of Teamsters Local 399. “We’re all sticking together,” Dougherty told Variety outside the event. “We have an opportunity to change things in this industry, and the only way we’re going to do that is if we’re together.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom said that he was “very worried” about the WGA strike, warning that “every single one of us will be impacted by this.”

Do you folks remember, not that long ago, during Star Wars Celebration, when Kathleen Kennedy told the press that Kevin Feige was never really attached to a “Star Wars” film and it was just the fandom that made it all up? She actually said, “We never discussed an idea,” and basically, gaslit everyone into thinking it was all a rumor. Of course, we know that’s not true because Feige talked about it, Michael Waldron talked about being hired to write a script, and now, we have the Russo Brothers, who not only confirm that Feige was working on a “Star Wars” film with Lucasfilm but that they were discussing possibly signing on to direct.