Nina Metz: Why the Hollywood writers strike matters to audiences
What is Hollywood without screenwriters? No characters to play. No scripts to shoot. That’s as fundamental as it gets.
TV and film writers are represented by the Writers Guild of America. With the exception of a few highly paid names, many have seen their careers become untenable in recent years as streaming radically upended the financial model. The people who dream up the shows and movies that we so compulsively watch are struggling to earn a living doing it. As a result, the WGA went on strike last week after the studios rejected many of its contract proposals.
That means no writing is being done for the foreseeable future. It’s unclear how long the strike will last. It could be days. It could be months. Late-night talk shows were the first to go dark, but other shows have also paused production or preproduction on their new seasons, including Netflix’s “Cobra Kai” and Showtime’s “Yellowjackets.”
A new “Game of Thrones” spinoff for HBO has paused its writers room as well, according to George R.R. Martin, who said in a: “I am not in LA, so I cannot walk a picket line as I did in 1988, but I want to go on the record with my full and complete and unequivocal support of my Guild.”
