Culture Crash: Almost Three Months Later: Why The Strike In Hollywood Is Still Marching On

Hollywood is currently a double-strike town. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May 2, and the Screen Actors Guild joined the strike when their deal was up on July 14, meaning movies and TV productions currently have no writers or actors, bringing the U.S. industry to something of a complete halt.

Both the WGA and SAG are striking against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, or AMPTP, a trade organization that includes hundreds of production companies including major studios like Disney, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Warner Brothers Discovery, and more, as well as streamers such as Netflix and Amazon.

The fight is largely over residuals and AI. Writers and actors both maintain that, since the switch to streaming especially, residual checks have become virtually worthless. Actress Mandy Moore  recently noted, for example, that even her residuals from being a lead on This is Us, one of the most popular shows of the past decade, are for tiny sums like 81 cents.

That may not be a huge problem for a superstar like Moore, but it paints a picture of just how little the workday actors that populate so many beloved TV shows and movies are getting on the back end of their deals. Their argument is that these industries – industries that generate billions of dollars and move the culture in America – are no longer reliable ways to make a living.

Even further, the unions are asking for some protection against the studios and streamers replacing them with AI, which has been seen as something of a non-starter for many AMPTP members.

The biggest roadblock right now is that the AMPTP is reportedly not even engaging in negotiations, with an anonymous executive telling Deadline they are hoping to wait until union members start “losing their apartments and losing their houses.”

Obviously, it seems like things aren’t close to a fair deal being struck, meaning new TV and movie productions are completely halted until further notice… so now is as good a time as any to go back and catch up on old favorites like The Wire or Breaking Bad.