After 146 days, the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers may finally be about to come to an arrangement that would put an end to the strike.
According to THR, the studios have presented their “best and final” offer to the union, with “The WGA and AMPTP meeting for bargaining on Saturday and will meet again on Sunday.”
This wording has understandably come in for some backlash, but, as far as we know, things are still on track and the two parties were very close to reaching a final compromise, with the studio side continuing "to work on language regarding regulations on artificial intelligence," which has been a major sticking point.
The big four studio bosses — Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, Disney chief Bob Iger, Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal studio chairman Donna Langley — had reportedly left the Sherman Oaks room by Saturday afternoon, which is said to suggest that almost "all the major issues had been resolved."
Of course, the SAG-AFTRA strike still needs to be addressed.
Even if a tentative deal between the WGA and AMPTP is reached, it would still need to be ratified by rank-and-file members before it could actually take effect. And even then, without an agreement with SAG-AFTRA, it may not do much to resume halted productions.
Even so, since both parties have very similar sets of demands, including better wages, residuals payments from streaming services for their work, and job protections against the use of artificial intelligence, it's believed that a WGA deal would open the door to a SAG-AFTRA agreement following soon after.
The strikes have resulted in a freeze on major film and TV announcements (you may have noticed), cast and director promotion/interviews, and several delays. The biggest project to be pushed back is undoubtedly Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part 2, which was moved from its original release date of November 2, 2023 to March 15, 2024 (more here).
2023's remaining studio tentpole comic book/superhero movies, The Marvels and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, are staying put, with the latter recently debuting its first trailer. But the feeling is that both films will be impacted by their respective casts/directors being unable to do much in the way of promotion/marketing until the strikes officially come to an end, so let's hope this deal goes through and it'll be business as usual before too long.