No./1 Inside the writers’ resistance
As the writers’ strike shuts down Hollywood, Empire heads to the picket lines to find out what they’re fighting for
ILLUSTRATION BARBARA GIBSON
AT 12:01AM ON 2 MAY, a sound rang out across Hollywood: the thud of 11,000 film and TV writers slamming their laptops shut in unison, refusing to work until studios and streaming platforms agree to more favourable working conditions.
“It’s about extinction. It’s about survival,” Hunger Games screenwriter Billy Ray tells Empire, three weeks into a strike that has shut down movies and shows such as Blade and Stranger Things, and brought into question the release dates of many of next year’s most anticipated series and blockbusters. Not since the last writers’ strike in 2007 — which lasted 100 days and threw everything from Quantum Of Solace to Lost into havoc — has Hollywood found itself embroiled in a civil war as disruptive or bitter.
In Los Angeles on 4 May, Empire went down to a picket line outside one of Netflix’s studios, where dozens of writers marched and chanted. The mood was friendly but fiery — righteous indignation was in the air. Spotting Mae Martin, creator of British romcom drama series Feel Good, we discuss the urgency. “I’m in the middle of a writers’ room for my next show, we were just in the zone, and then this happens,” says Martin. “It’s my first strike. But it feels so necessary.”
This is happening all over town. For the screenwriters protesting, the action feels like a last resort. “You don’t think I’d rather be writing M3GAN 2 right now?” says Akela Cooper, who penned the horror hit and warns of an “existential threat” to the quality of film and TV if the Writers Guild of America (WGA) doesn’t succeed in negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
Money, of course, is a major element in the fight. “There are successful television writers who are on food stamps and have second jobs to cover their rent,” says The OA writer Claire Kiechel, explaining how in the last decade, the average weekly pay of working screenwriters has declined by 23 per cent according to a WGA study, in part due to the advent of streaming services squeezing costs across the industry. Another writer, speaking to Empire on the condition of anonymity, currently works as an Uber driver on weekends and evenings despite writing credits on an award-winning show for a major streaming platform. “People assume that once you’ve reached the mountaintop in Hollywood as a screenwriter that you must live in a mansion,” they say. “But it turns out the mountaintop is a pretty fucking barren place.”
Auditions for Season 2 of The Last Of Us have been put on hold.
Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers, Watchmen) tells Empire he finds the record profits still being made by streaming companies sickening. “We’re in a symbiotic relationship with these corporations. But the fundamental reality is that, as their profits go up, we’re making less and less.”
More than money, though, says Lindelof, the strike is about “protecting the quality of TV shows and movies we love”. He points out how one of the WGA’s demands is a limit to how studios use artificial intelligence in the writing process on movies as that technology advances. “A decade from now, if the studios have their way, AI will be iterating scripts that one writer then puts a bit of a polish on,” he says. “That’s the doomsday scenario, because [it’ll leave] television and movies completely anaesthetised.”
Cooper agrees. M3GAN might be one of the defining movies about AI of the last year, but AI could never have written it, she insists. “One of the best picket signs that I’ve seen thus far in the strike said: ‘AI doesn’t have childhood trauma!’ Not everyone needs childhood trauma to tell a good story. But you do need human experiences, otherwise where’s your emotional heart of a movie? What are people relating to?”
The knock-on effect of writers being replaced with AI would be disastrous, says Ray, risking the cultural relevance of the entire industry. “AI will generate shitty scripts, the quality of storytelling will drop and audiences will move on to TikTok, YouTube or whatever the equivalent at that moment is. Because movies just won’t be as good,” he predicts. In this scenario, film and TV will no longer be the dominant form of cultural entertainment, replaced by “someone on TikTok doing a cartwheel while their feet are on fire. Who needs Succession when you have that, right?” he laughs. “If writers don’t survive, the business won’t survive. And then everyone’s fucked.”
How long could this strike rumble on for? Some are speculating it might last even longer than the 2007 shutdown, because of an alleged refusal to negotiate by the AMPTP. The WGA’s request for restrictions on the use of AI, for example, was met with an offer of “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology”. Other requests were rejected outright.
Christopher and Jonathan Nolan on the picket line at Paramount.
Alamy, Getty Images, Alex Godfrey, Twitter
There is hope, though. “One difference this time [compared to 2007] is that we have more support from the other unions. Hopefully that speeds it up,” Mae Martin tells Empire, pointing to the large number of actors and directors who’ve thrown their support behind the strike. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan showed up; Larry David even sent a truck serving bagels to protesting writers outside the Warner Bros. lot.
Writer and comedian Mae Martin;
Stranger
Things and Andor are both affected by the strike;
Talk-show host Seth Meyers joined protesters.
This disruption could be just the beginning. On 18 May, it was announced that the Screen Actors Guild will vote on whether they also go on strike over similar alleged mistreatment and unfair working conditions. Kiechel appreciates that viewers are worried about what all of this means for their favourite shows and movies, and says that writers are desperate to get back to crafting the stories they (and audiences) love. Until they can do so “in a way that’s sustainable”, though, they’re committed to finding new methods of applying pressure on studios to find a solution. “We are 11,000 incredibly creative [people] who now have nothing to do but figure out the best way to show the studios exactly what creativity we have,” she says. “We feel empowered. We feel emboldened. They haven't seen anything yet.”
AL
HORNER
No./2 The Taika to-do list
The prolific director has more chores than Cinderella
MAKE KLARA AND THE SUN
Taika Waititi has just signed on to direct Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nobel Prize-winning story about an artificially intelligent companion, raising questions as to when exactly he’ll find the time. Here’s hoping Klara has her fighting face on, because she’s got some serious competition for the filmmaker’s attention.
GET TIME BANDITS IN THE BAG
Filming of Waititi’s Apple TV+ series kicked off last October, although there’s been few updates since, bar a rumour that Terry Gillam, director of the original film, walked off the set. If Waititi turns into a hermit crab, we know why.
FINISH THAT STAR WARS SCRIPT
“He won’t get mad at me for saying this; he’s just slow,” Kathleen Kennedy told Empire at Star Wars Celebration before confirming that the often “distracted” filmmaker Waititi owes her the third act of his upcoming galaxy-set adventure. With Waititi rumoured to start shooting the highly secretive Lucasfilm feature next year, he’d better get his Gungans in a row quickly.
REVIVE AKIRA
Waititi has been linked to a live-action adaptation of this groundbreaking manga series since 2017. Yet the filmmaker further delayed the long-gestating project, which was first announced in 2002, by taking a Thor detour. Now the Asgardian dust has settled, Waititi can rev the engine back up on this Neo-Tokyo-set biker movie.
BITE DOWN ON WE’RE WOLVES
The fate of this long-gestating What We Do In The Shadows spin-off is less certain than a vampire surviving a sunrise. But until the New Zealand director announces it’s off, there’s still hope.
DUST OFF FLASH GORDON
A live-action adaptation of Waititi’s childhood favourite has been percolating for at least seven years, according to producer John Davis. The script was confirmed to be underway back in 2021, but it’s been all quiet on the Mingo front since then.
ACTIVATE THE INCAL
Someone sure has a thing for space operas! Waititi is down to adapt a film based on the pioneering French graphic-novel series. The intergalactic detective story is widely hailed as a visionary masterpiece, but as Waititi is in the process of proving with Akira, he’s not afraid of ambitious adaptations.
UNLEASH THE OOMPA-LOOMPAS
Oompa-Loompa doom-pa-dee-doo, here’s something else Taika’s got on too. His animated origin story about Willy Wonka’s orange employees isn’t the only Dahl adaptation he’s helming, with another Charlie And The Chocolate Factory animated series incoming. Both shows will be the stuff of pure imagination until Waititi checks them off his never-ending list.
BETH WEBB