Before we get started, wanted to share a cool little thing I learned literally yesterday. Typically at a movie theater—or, at least, the movie theaters I’ve been to—the handicapped seats are just empty spots where you can fit a wheelchair. At the Crystal City Alamo Drafthouse, they’re actual chairs that can be taken out to provide a space for wheelchairs. There’s a cool little animation on the site and everything. I bring this up because there are only 11 seats left for Across the Movie Aisle’s live show on May 16th (two weeks from today!) and they’re almost all in that handicapped row. I think it’s okay for the non-wheelchaired to pick them up at this point, given that it’s basically a sell-out show?
Anyway, we hope to see you there!
On this week’s episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) talk about the WGA strike. Why are writers hitting the picket line? What don’t studios want to give up? What will the industry look like after this work stoppage? All that and more during this discussion. (Full disclosure: we taped this Monday afternoon, more or less assuming that the strike would happen.) Then we reviewed Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, an almost shockingly earnest war movie from the king of Brit-gangster movies.
We’ll talk more Guy Ritchie on the bonus episode this week. And speaking of bonus episodes: last Friday’s got lost in the shuffle, so we just posted it this morning. You can listen here if you’re a paid-up member of Bulwark+. And if you aren’t, you should be!
I have one ticket for the 5/16 live event. Sadly I can't attend, so if anyone is interested in taking my ticket- let me know!
I'm WGA. Biggest challenges for the AMPTP are that needs between the streamers and legacies diverge and that some of the key writer issues (AI especially) DO align with DGA needs this period. There is a not insignificant chance of a two-guild strike (doubt SAG follows) and that could have the potential to fracture the streamer/legacy divisions and break some companies out, just like Paradigm decided they weren't going to go belly-up so WME could keep producing movies and riding MMA money.
Sonny, would you please elaborate on why your default sympathy is usually with capital over labor?
I was kind of joking there; I don’t actually feel strongly either way about private sector unions (though I do reject general calls for “solidarity” because, like, maybe the unions are wrong! I reserve the right to think for myself on a case by case basis that depends at least in part on how much a labor action inconveniences me, personally). It’s public sector unions I have a knee jerk disdain for.
As often, I’m with Alyssa - and any review of studio executive compensation released recently will say why: those same people who chased Wall Street’s ignorant-of-the-industry and generally thoughtless (who could NOT have known that tons more content was going to entail huge costs?!) demands made out like bandits this year. Some of them may be competent and even creative but this very public disparity, in an industry that touches almost everyone in some way, brings into every living room a widespread 21st century problem: a few make waaaaay too much on the work of others, often with little to no investment of their own. 18th century economists worried about running out of land to feed a growing population; I would raise another one today: how much subscriber or revenue growth do we think can be generated from AI creations that are all “educated” by the same universe of already-made stories? Have we no more interest in being interested than that?
I'm WGA. I'll take fewer better jobs vs tons of uber jobs. The work is way too specialized/ difficult. LA cost of living is also a factor. And we all know the Mike Whites will be able to make their White Lotuses - aughable that they won't.
There were comments about the impact of unions that reminded me of what I first read in places like the National Review. in the late 1960s… That (oh dear) prices/costs will go up and so we will have less product and even may see a tragedy for the starting writer (oh my, the poor beginning writer).
Puhleaze!
And I write this as someone who was happy when Reagan broke the Patco strike. But haven’t even conservatives learned the basic rules of economics that only grant the benefits of the unseen hand of the market place when buyers and sellers are equal?
They are not. Individual sellers of labor are not remotely equal in power to the buyers - meaning giant international firms who are more concerned about censorship in China than their workers.
Are conservatives unable to learn? If so, please learn the following - there are no simple answers. So unions are frustrating and even sometimes destructive, but they are necessary. We tried doing it without regulations and unions. The 1913 silk strike in Paterson NJ helped destroy Paterson’s silk industry but it was an industry in flux - so on the downslide. Child labor, dangerous workplaces and dirty rivers were all a product of the marketplace untrammeled.
So streaming got silly - like the big fins on late 1950s cars. We never needed Peacock, etc etc. But with the big content providers cutting the easier costs (which are the writers - they need actors for each minute) well the writers are doing what is necessary. There will in the end be less content anyway, much like there are fewer newspapers and fewer minor league teams.