The Studio Puppets on Deadline.com Are Selling Out the Unions

By Dustin Rowles | Film | July 12, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Film | July 12, 2023 |

The trades often do the bidding of the studios in exchange for access, especially Deadline, which also had a history of platforming defenses of actors of ill repute (Scott Rudin will attempt his comeback someday, and Deadline will be there to promote it). For instance, last night — the day before SAG-AFTRA is due to go on strike — Deadline ran a piece likely designed to provoke fear in both the actors and writers.

It’s an insidious piece in which Deadline reports that the studios are in it for the long haul, and aren’t even considering returning to negotiations with writers until they’ve bled them dry, until they’re so desperate to return to work that they’ll accept sh*tty terms.

“Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention,” says what Deadline calls a “a top-tier producer close to the Carol Lombardini-run AMPTP.”

While some dismiss this as just “cynical strike talk,” studio and streamer sources around town confirm the strategy. They also confirm that the plan to grind down the guild has long been in the works for a labor cycle that all sides agree is a game-changer one way or another for Hollywood.

“It’s been agreed to for months, even before the WGA went out,” one executive said. “Nobody wanted a strike, but everybody knew this was make or break.”

If the studios follow through on this supposed strategy, we’re looking into a fall without new scripted content on the networks (including Abbott Elementary), delays on blockbuster films, another situation where there is a year and a half or two years between seasons of beloved series, and a situation where we’re going to be stuck with a lot of unscripted content, game shows, and content licensed from overseas. Second-rate content on Netflix will become third-rate.

If this strike runs into October, it’s going to start feeling like the pandemic again. That’s going to feel triggering for a lot of viewers, who are going to take it out on their streaming services. Content may continue to flow until October (with the help of the NFL), but it’s also going to create gaps. When Paramount+ runs out of Taylor Sheridan series, subscribers are going to cancel subscriptions. When all Netflix has is true-crime and Is It Cake?, subscribers are going to take a break until Stranger Things and Cobra Kai return. Summer 2025 movies are going to get pushed to winter 2025. The streamers are going to lose millions of subscribers. The demise of linear television will hasten.

How long can David Zaslav realistically hold out? What’s left over on HBO this year beyond an installment of True Detective? Euphoria is at least another year out, likewise The Last of Us and White Lotus. Zaslav is hanging on by a thread in an industry where growth is necessary. Growth is impossible without content, and content is impossible without writers (and actors). It’s like the CEO of WalMart telling farmers they can hold out for another three months. Shoppers can only eat canned green beans and frozen blueberries for so long. Bob Iger is trying to breathe new life into Disney. How is he going to do that without new content?

Why did the AMPTP push for federal mediation with the actors yesterday? Because they don’t want a strike. Because it will mean layoffs at the executive level. The writers don’t want a strike, either, but a lot of them were already working at Starbucks to make ends meet. They’re just picking up an extra shift now. The writer for the Emmy nominated The Bear who went to an awards ceremony with a negative bank account balance and was looking for jobs in movie theaters is not hurting any more now than before. He can hold out until October. Can David Zaslav? Reed Hastings? Tom Ryan? Not if they want to keep shareholders happy.

Pay the writers. Deadline and the other trades (all of which are owned by the same company!) may carry water for the studios, but the average television viewer and moviegoer does not read Variety. They just want to know where the new season of Abbott Elementary and Stranger Things is, and they’re not going to blame the writers or the studios. They’re just going to stop watching. And you can’t generate advertising revenue or gain new subscribers if people stop watching.