The bad news is that the writers' strike goes on and has achieved a kind of victory in stopping the full television broadcast of the Golden Globes (which had been set for Sunday, January 13). The good news is that now we won't have to watch the Golden Globes this year. The long-term meaning of this is that the Academy Awards, the Oscars (set for February 24), have a victory on their hands, if, somehow, they can get the writers back to work in time so that "scripted" segments of the awards show can be aired. In recent years, the Oscar evening has faced increasing competition from the upstart Golden Globes, which run a shorter show in a banquet format where the stars can be seen getting smashed and gossiping together.
Indeed, I predict that the writers' strike will be over well before February 24. I have to add that in most serious ways the strike has hardly happened.
The central issue in the strike is not one that grips the public: it concerns the notional percentage writers may get from the future and as yet unknown use of their material on the internet and in screen uses yet to be devised. Don't get me wrong: this is big money down the road, but it is very hard to prove and itemise now and it is residual revenue that will only help writers who are successful already, in that they have their material bought and made. Those writers are doing very well; they just want to do better. In that, they have every right to that hope and every reason to believe that the production companies intend to screw them. But they have never made the public care about it, because the plunder is future earnings for maybe 15% of the Guild's members. Most screenwriters are "failures". They sell nothing. They earn nothing. And failures seldom earn pity in this country.
Beyond that, this has been a strike with different twists for different folks. A strike doesn't hit the movie screens for months. But television is affected quickly, especially the late night talk shows where the hosts often do monologues that are written. For a moment those shows were killed. Then, bit by bit, they made special deals with their writers and came back on the air. David Letterman grew a beard (it was rather becoming) that would last as long as the strike - then the other day he shaved it off on the air. Well, that kind of theatre impresses people. And now this week, the remains of United Artists (a company now owned by Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner) made a separate deal with the Writers Guild whereby they pledged to give the Guild what they wanted. All of it? Not clear. There was probably a compromise. In other words private deals are breaking out all over as a few powerful writers want their projects to get under way - and look forward to their night at the Oscars.
With enough private deals you no longer have a strike. You may have confusion, but that suits the companies very well. And now rescue is in sight. The Directors Guild is about to start negotiations for its next contract, and, lo and behold, their central concern is the same as the writers'. But directors have a history of settling. They have hardly ever struck because they believe they are artists, or because they are very inclined to find a settlement quickly. So I suspect it will be very hard for the writers to resist this example. The Oscar nominations are announced on January 22. The week after that, we're all cooking.
The good news will be Hollywood is back at work. The bad news will be that the writers will still be being screwed. But this conclusion is inescapable and I fear that the Guild - not in the best of conditions - will lose a lot of respectability because of it. But the companies knew their aim from the outset: it was to break the Writers Guild. And the way you break a union in America is to pay its successful members a packet of money. It so happens that there's a movie out this season that describes just this sort of business, it's called There Will Be Blood, and it may win Oscars.
