Malcolm Owen
A picket for the Writers Guild of America has shut down production on the second season of Apple TV+ workplace comedy "Loot."
The Writer's Guild of America is striking in Hollywood, with approximately 12,000 members on picket lines outside of major studios. The action has halted progress on many productions, including one for Apple TV+.
The comedy "Loot" had its production in Bel-Air shut down due to picketers turning up to a mansion used for filming the show on Friday, a source close to production told The Hollywood Reporter. The picketing disrupted production, with star and executive producer Maya Rudolph reportedly retreating to her trailer while strike members were in attendance.
"Loot," which was renewed for a second season in July 2022, depicts Rudolph as billionaire Molly Novak, seeing her life spiraling out of control. After a public downfall, Novak discovers she has a charity foundation, which leads to a journey of self-discovery.
Created by Alan Yang and Matt Hubbard, Rudolph also writes for the show.
The WGA strike is a result of the writer's union and the Alliance for Motion Pictures and Television Producers failing to agree on a new contract between writers and studios. The WGA wanted the new contract to provide fairer pay to writers, as well as protections to make writing a sustainable profession, according to a notice from the WGA.
After a failure to reach an agreement by a May 1 deadline, striking began on May 2.
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6 Comments
Quite a paradox — for production of Loot to continue, the writers need more loot.
From Robert Reich:
“We can’t afford to pay our writers more.”
Meanwhile, media company CEO pay is through the roof:
Netflix CEOs: $51M & $50M [$101M total!!!]
Nexstar CEO: $39M
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO: $39M
Comcast CEO: $32M
Paramount CEO: $32M
Walt Disney CEO : $24M
AMC: $24M
Fox Corp CEO : $22M
Hello?
How long before the scripts, of these often predictable shows, are written by LLM AIs?
Virtually all productions have been stalled over the writers strike. Film and television productions rely on extensive planning and it's impossible to plan if you don't know whether you will be able to lock down locations or get into your normal place of work. To their credit, the writers have been doing an excellent job of being disruptive. Those productions that have tried to forge ahead have largely failed and what work they have done has not been particularly efficient. Inefficiency costs money. Producers hate spending money for any reason, but especially when it appears, to them, wasteful. So this is going to remain a problem until the strike is resolved.
Many facets of their profession are already unsustainable. There's a lot of nuance to the argument, but among the biggest issues is streaming numbers. Since the beginning of filmed entertainment, content creators have had access to some method — be it coins in the nickelodeon, box office receipts, or Neilson ratings — to gauge the popularity of their works. (And by extension, their own value to their employers, which if significant, they could then leverage into something approximating career stability.) For the better part of a century, an entire business model was built and sustained around this premise. But the advent of streaming has placed those metrics behind a veiled curtain and streamers have unilaterally refused to share that data. It's a huge issue that affects everyone in the business, right down to the below-the-line crew. The writers are correct in holding the line on this one, as a win here is a win for everyone.
Put another way: Imagine if Apple suddenly started refusing to share download or purchase data with App Store developers and instead offered everyone a one-time flat fee for each title. Instead of their typical 30% take, they then just keep all the profits. Perhaps good for Apple in the short term. But without any sustainable income, app development would become little more than a hobby, updates would stop, the talent pool would drain away, and the entire business model of the App Store would implode. That's what Apple (and their cohorts) have been proposing for content creators.