Hollywood labour disputes

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121133068#Comment_121133068

HEROES was indeed good at first. The first season was excellent. Went downhill from the opening moments of season 2. Nothing to to do with the strike.

as far as I remember the creator only intended one season but changed his mind when more money was offered. I’d do it too but not with the same cast - they should have told a whole new story.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121134675#Comment_121134675

Because they know they pushed it too far and are on a hiding to nothing: they made bank by screwing creative people out of streaming royalties, or scanning Extras' faces without consent for future CGI use, etc. etc. They were probably hoping the public would get impatient or start to turn against the actors/writers but seems like support has only hardened, as like @johnny_ultimate said unlike 2007 there's still plenty of online material being released. It's probably only the traditonal networks that are struggling.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I did see something that said they were going back into talks with the studios so maybe something will come of that.

CastorTroy

Wasn't the last strike the reason the Irish girl got stranded in an alternate timeline in Heroes and they had to cut that story short so she was never heard from again?

eightieschewbaccy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121136450#Comment_121136450

All I can remember is there was a season with a character briefly trapped in the Cork docklands. 😂

Breaking Bad funnily enough was saved somewhat by the last strike. Gilligan initially intended to kill off Jesse in season 1 but the season got cut short from strike.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121134908#Comment_121134908

I think negotiations happened yesterday, but I saw that a reporter essentially put out something (likely from the studio's PR) afterwards saying negotiations went well, hopeful they can come to an agreement, but likely no more negotiations for the rest of the year. Essentially trying to sow the seed that if the unions don't accept the latest negotiation it could be early next year before the studios come back to the table.

https://twitter.com/davidfaber/status/1704673659866984722?s=19

https://twitter.com/seanWcunningham/status/1704701333494730996?s=19

pixelburp

Yes there was a brief subplot set in "Ireland" that was basically a bit of California dressed with shamrocks here and there, plus one of the actors from Star Trek: Enterprise pulling an awful Irish accent, even by Hollywood's standards.

I think Johnny wondered the same thing - was the show ever good to begin with? It definitely came at a time when "comic book adaptation" was something stupid, childish and camp. Heroes tried to ground it a little with human beings and adults, but the execution was a little iffy. It also was one of those first "mystery box" style shows with the central "save the cheerleader, save the world" tease.

Wasn't there a brief reboot attempt?

Penn

I think the first season of Heroes was pretty good. Sure it went a bit overboard in trying to constantly throw twist after twist in, or needlessly obfuscate small bits of information to have a shocking revelation about it after, but overall I thought it was fairly solid, some great performances (Zachary Quinto in particular) and had a satisfying season finale.

After that it was always going to end up in Lost territory where they had to keep raising the stakes, go bigger with twists, and end up twisting themselves into knots (and I say that as someone who will defend Lost to the death.... TO THE DEATH!). The writers strike impacting Season 2 of Heroes only exacerbated the issues the show was facing.

johnny_ultimate

Yeah season two had issues anyway, but the strike cutting it off mid-flow was catastrophic.

There was indeed a reboot relatively recently. Add to the ‘does not exist’ pile of weird cultural reboot artefacts.

CastorTroy

Heroes went the route of season 1 seemingly being planned out then after its success, not knowing what to do with the characters after that. And Sylar became popular even though a murderer so they had to find a way to keep him around.

As for the return series, they didn't have many back and they (Don't think I need to spoiler but will anyway)

Spoiler Warning

killed Claire off, even though she was basically Wolverine with some excuse about her losing her powers when she became pregnant or something.

Anyway, on topic, seems both parties were happy with negotiations. But even if they manage to come to a deal today, there's still the actors to sort out.

I guess it would mean the return of all those talk shows, like Drew Barrymore and also can start opening up writers' rooms again for tv shows and have scripts ready to go for when actors can get back to work.

Brief_Lives

a bit of news, and news clip..

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hollywood-strike-studios-writers-deal-talks-rcna111297

~Rebel~

Looks like the WGA strike is close to an end;

https://www.wgacontract2023.org/announcements/negotiations-update-tentative-agreement

great job by the sounds of things!

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153197#Comment_121153197

If the WGA managed to get movement on all its demands that'll be fantastic news not just for Hollywood's writers, but unions in general. It'll show that mealy mouthed "compromise" for its own sake isn't always necessary if the corporation is acting like an oppressor. In sure the WGA will have given way on some things, but that early release sounds promising.

Penn

Great news! Really hope they've put significant safeguards in place that the studios can't find different ways to try and stiff them, but the main thing is the union seems to be happy they've gotten most of what they wanted anyway, so here's hoping the SAG-AFTRA negotiations go the same way quickly.

eightieschewbaccy

Writers have a tentative agreement. Now outstanding is actors.

johnny_ultimate

They held out, and they appear to have gotten a deal they deserved. Fair play, and let’s see if it’s approved.

Let see if this lights a fire under the studios to give the actors a fair deal too. Solidarity.

CastorTroy

Wonder if they worked something in so things like what happened with Batgirl or the likes of Willow and all can't happen.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153623#Comment_121153623

I'd hope at the least that there might be something which means writers etc get an additional payout if the content they worked on is either scrapped for tax purposes or removed from streaming, as that greatly impacts residuals which the writers etc may have been counting on.

I doubt they could force studios to release or keep content on the service.

B.A._Baracus

Delete me.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153623#Comment_121153623

wouldnt that be more on the writers and directors not to make sub par material in the first place? they were only cancelled because the content wasnt worth putting out/renewing, you cant reward failure with more pay.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153911#Comment_121153911

You keep banging that drum that BatGirl was some Ishtar, The Room sized disaster Zaslov simply had to can. Why is that 'cos you know as much bout its final quality than us. Fact is, a number of productions got targeted and Memory Holed, ensuring a lot of professionals beyond Writers & Actors didn't get their dues. Beyond that you're just bringing presumptions.

And TBH if you're putting the onus on Writers & Directors to somehow stop making crap movies, perhaps you're looking at the wrong culprit as to why crap gets made in the first place. Hard to make pearls when you're given bullshít to start with, no time to finesse, and "studio notes" as you go along.

ixoy

The cynic in me wonders if the studios will use the apparent "losses" they'll incur due to the WGA agreement as an excuse for why they can't give the actors what they're looking for. Try and pit them against each other.

johnny_ultimate

It doesn’t even matter if Batgirl was good or not - a studio dumping an entire near-completed film for tax / accounting reasons is such a bleak, cynical manoeuvre that is inherently anti-creativity and art. All evidence points to the blame being entirely with the studio and their cynical cost-cutting measures. Lord knows Warner Bros have been happy to dump DC-flavoured rubbish into cinemas recently, so any argument that it was too bad to release doesn’t pass the smell test.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153954#Comment_121153954

Willow for example (I'd no personal interest in it) but all I heard was it wasnt good and no one watched it, so why would anyone complain that it wasnt renewed and taken off? There maybe a corporate element that they want remakes in the first place but after that its on the directors and writers to make stuff people want to watch

As for Batgirl just using "follow the money" logic , it would have cost more to market than they would have got back in Box office , therefor the final product was not good enough to release. The fact that they wouldnt stream it means imo that they couldnt come up with a convincing reason, as everyone would see it was a subpar movie.

Big picture I thin the industry is coming out of a streaming bubble where too much "content" was being made by unqualified and inexperienced people. Im not interested enough to know the behind the scenes people but there seems to have been numerous shows where the senior people had little or no credits to their name, Rings of Power was an example of that? and look what a disaster that was, which was down to shoddy writing and directing, not down to production quality , im not sure what the "studio notes" might have been but everyone was all in.

Fysh

Your comments re: Batgirl would be much more plausible if the binfire of a production of The Flash hadn't been pushed through.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155007#Comment_121155007

As for Batgirl just using "follow the money" logic , it would have cost more to market than they would have got back in Box office , therefor the final product was not good enough to release. The fact that they wouldnt stream it means imo that they couldnt come up with a convincing reason, as everyone would see it was a subpar movie.

"Follow the money" only works if you ignore the reality of a year where Black Adam, The Flash and Shazam 2 came out and bombed spectacularly; all infinitely more expensive productions than Batgirl's supposed $90 bargain, and whose quality levels have been met with widescale derision. And you'd think by now, enough would have crept out through the rumour mill - especially for a mystery project nobody has seen like this - that Batgirl was a terrible movie. Movie productions are as tight as sieves when it comes to tattle. It's reductive to presume it's "just" about the final quality and TBH getting back on topic, is not the point either.

If people who made shít for Hollywood didn't get paid cos it was shít, then they'd all be on skid row out in California. Doesn't matter if the final film's good bad or induces seizures and cancer - the people who made it should get paid for their craft. Sniffing that "it was crap anyway" is totally beside the point.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121154022#Comment_121154022

No company normally chooses to lose more money than it has to, its not government!, and normally the equation might be they guess they will lose money overall (in a cinema release) but it would cost more not to release the film, it comes down to marginal costs at the end of the day, for example Blue Beetle box office was about $125m so was a loss making film but still worth putting out financially or were generally just more optimistic during the making of it.

Rereading the wiki entry for Batgirl, as it wasnt for the cinema, I'd forgotten that, it still looked like it needed more money spent on it, so why spend more money on something that wouldnt add value. I'd question spending $90m on a minor streaming movie in the first place? thats a hell of a loss leader. As there was some merger thing going on there was probably an element that they wanted to clear the decks but still speaks to a film that wouldnt have generated any income (new subs) from it. The fact that they didnt sell it on to another company also suggests it didnt have a market value

CastorTroy

Didn't see it at the link, but all going well, when would they be going back to work.

I assume once it's approved at all levels it'll then need to be made official so another week at least?

Then how long for the actors side to negotiate, etc?

Best case scenario, everyone back at work middle of next month.

I know ones have said about the writers producing scripts while actors continue negotiating but don't forget there are movies and TV shows already in production but paused that are really just relying on the actors being back.

Were there any movies or TV shows that are finished but only delayed due to no one being able to promote them?

CastorTroy

And tvline answered my question with SNL being the one likely to return first with other shows like talk shows and late night shows back next month.

https://tvline.com/news/fall-tv-season-delayed-show-return-dates-list-strikes-1235048865/

As for the rest, we may get half seasons of normally 20+ episode seasons. Maybe Quantum Leap could get more since they already have 6 or 8 done. Think it may have been they were aiming for 8 but got 6 done with scripts ready for the other 2.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121155480#Comment_121155480

No company tends to spend tens of millions on a production and then dump it into a sealed vault for accounting reasons, either. The fact that a studio can do that and 'save money' is not a condemnation of the film (good, bad or indifferent), but a condemnation of a nonsensical financial system. And they were hardly going to shift a single DC film off to another streaming platform, which would just be even more confusing.

The writers, staff and creative team had nothing to do with the budget of the film - that was a studio decision. They may have overspent, but just look at what Netflix spends on mediocre or worse faux-blockbusters that are forgotten within a weekend. These are all studio decisions. Of course, writers and creative teams deserve fair criticism when they do a bad job, but the vast, vast majority of them are also just freelance people living from job to job. They deserve fair wages, decent residuals and for their work to not just be immediately memory-holed a month after release (if it's even released at all). I don't get the impulse to constantly criticise them instead of the rich people making the decisions.

The big studios very much sold streaming on the idea of an ever-expanding library, and now people like Zazlav are swiftly and embarrassingly backtracking on that. The partial collapse of streaming as a sustainable business model is the fault of extremely well-paid business people, not those that were hired to deliver the 'content'.