On Saturday evening, Hollywood Studios announced that they would be presenting their “best and final” offer to the WGA (Writers Guild of America) to end the strike.
This will be the fourth day where representatives for WGA and Hollywood studios engage in intensive negotiations to hopefully end the strike. Yet, a tentative deal requires ratification by members before becoming effective.
In a joint statement, the WGA and AMPTP confirmed their continued bargaining sessions. “The WGA and AMPTP met for bargaining on Saturday and will meet again on Sunday.”
By Saturday afternoon, the top executives from the “big four” studios—David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery, Bob Iger of Disney, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, and Donna Langley of NBCUniversal—had left the Sherman Oaks negotiation room. This development suggested that the resolution of most major issues was at hand. But despite their absence, the studio chiefs remained actively engaged in the negotiation process for WGA and Hollywood studies to end the strike.
At present, WGA has over 11,000 writers and has been on strike since May 2. Therefore, marking its 145th day on Saturday. This strike is inching closer to the union's record of 154 days, set in 1988. Even before the SAG-AFTRA actors‘ union joined the strike on July 14, numerous productions had already ground to a halt.
Throughout the negotiations between the WGA and AMPTP, contentious issues revolved around wages, worker protections, and the utilization of artificial intelligence.
However, a tentative agreement must undergo ratification by union members and a separate accord with SAG-AFTRA. This represents around 160,000 actors for full production resumption. The strike's end does not guarantee an immediate return to industry normalcy.
Both SAG-AFTRA and WGA presented Hollywood studios with similar sets of demands during strikes.