FORCE MAJEURED! Writer Deals Axed At ABC Studios

COMMENTS (83)

• I’m with Shelly. 27 plus million dollars and IATSE people are pissed off at writers. GET SERIOUS. As writers, we ought to feel proud that we are standing up to the forces of greed and evil. Anybody who can’t understand that our fight is on behalf of ALL creative and working people is either naive or ignorant.

  Comment by bonnie garvin — Friday January 11, 2008 @ 11:33pm PST  Reply to this post

• I should of made that left turn in Albuquerque.

  Comment by Tod — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 12:57am PST  Reply to this post

• Four hundred bicyclists of the Los Angeles-based Midnight Ridazz bike group, rode past Paramount Studios tonight. They stopped outgoing traffic and yelled slogans at the cars and guards at the Melrose gate. “Stop dicking around and negotiate!” “Settle the strike now!” “Writers deserve a fair shake!”

  Comment by Stuart KD — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 1:15am PST  Reply to this post

• Wow, 20 posts commenting on a headline. Nikki, you can save yourself a lot of typing just build headlines and they will come.

  Comment by Chips Down — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 2:56am PST  Reply to this post

• The list showing up in an E! Online article is:

  Curb Your Enthusiasm executive producer and Borat director Larry Charles

  Scrubs’ Bill Callahan

  That 70s Show’s Joshua Sternin and Jeffrey Ventimilia

  Gone Baby Gone’s Sean Bailey

  Private Practice star Taye Diggs who’s still on the show but saw his production deal get axed.

  source
  http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=8add473a-ba54-44a5-bd40-e3cef324d12d

  Hopefully Nikki can help us identify more of the force majeure’d deals so we ordinary people can take action…my friends who love Scrubs won’t let their show go out like this

  Comment by VDOvault — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 3:31am PST  Reply to this post

• The trend is that artist will move to the internet or work for themselves, I personally can write, character design, storyboard (very well) animate (in Flash and Maya)and play music and i know of others that can (Google LOTS OF ROBOTS). Adobe FLASH, MAYA, PHOTOSHOP, uTube, iTunes etc; it’s “Hollywood” broken down into regular people size bites.
  There are more and more one man studios popping up everywhere (mine this year) soooooooo writers (non-geniuses)will need to find these future Apartment studios and make deals (animate my story for a fee)the “Studios” seem to be aware of the changing environment and the writers don’t. The world is changing and ‘Hollywood’ will become one big Animation studio, Actors will be replaced with CGI (cause it’s cheaper why else). Study the life of Bill Peet or visit Jonh K’s site “All kinds of things”; “Hollywood” doesn’t care how talented you are, so work for yourself (plus a regular gig (Trader Joes)…part time of course)and succeed that’s the best was to fight, this is the beauty of the internet; if you have been “the frustrated creative” you see the connections better than if you have been well off… creatively speaking. No one wants to work for a studio that ok’s Lion King XII, they pay Iger for this type of thinking and Bill Peet became an alcoholic… this is and always has been the reality of Hollywood (ARTIST WILL RATHER CREATE (right brain) THAN DEAL WITH BUSINESS left brain) The writers should talk to the older Disney Animators (if they can find them)_ for a Hollywood reality check.

  Comment by BlackRichard — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 4:27am PST  Reply to this post

• Here-here, Shelly!

  What these short-sighted strike critics don’t get is that all over this country these massive corporations are getting richer and paying their workers less. They are weakening and destroying unions in every business while the CEOs are rewarded with tens of millions of dollars.

  Hey, IATSE, I will confess I did not vote for this strike. Residuals never meant much to me. But I am behind it a thousand percent now that I am educated on the motivations behind these corporations – THEY ARE TRYING TO DESTROY ALL OF OUR UNIONS. How else are they able to make up for the billions of dollars in lost revenue? It’s not from what they’ll save with breaking the WGA – it’s what they’ll save by breaking all the unions. Do the math.

  I am staying strong not for me, I am staying strong for every union out there. If they weaken us, they weaken you. Can you really not see that?

  Comment by that's it! — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 5:48am PST  Reply to this post

• Hmmm… ABC seems to be screaming very loudly the last couple of days. And from what I’ve heard from my friends near the ABC board room, there has been a lot more screaming than usual. People are walking on egg shells wondering if they’re next. I think ABC is feeling the impact of this strike more than (and sooner than) they thought they would. Moonves has already said he wants to re-start negotiations. Iger is terrified the stock will go down (and affect his job/salary) so he has to make these moves to lead investors to believe he’s got the situation under control. He doesn’t. The Oscars are next and that costs ABC $40 in ad revenue. Shareholders will not like that, and its not like the Globes/NBC, because GE can just write it off this one time. A $40 million dollar hit to ABC combined with zero development, no product in the pipeline to sell to advertisers in May and a struggling film division all adds up to disaster at ABC.
  Lastly, these deals that have been terminated are largely symbolic. I have to believe that they add up to less thand $5-6 million combined. This is just petty and comes out of sheer panic.
  It’s time to fire Nick Counter, boys, he sold you a bill of goods he CANNOT deliver on this time around!

  Comment by JulianP — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 6:45am PST  Reply to this post

• 27.7 million. That’s gonna keep WIllow Bay in 1000 thread sheets for sure!

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 7:01am PST  Reply to this post

• So Bob Iger gets 27.7 mil, meanwhile the writers can’t be spoken to and they are offering NABET huge cuts in medical and pension benefits as well as pay in 6 minute increments after 8 hrs(you don’t expect lunch with that do you?). Fuck ABC/Disney and the mouse it rode in on.

  Comment by bporter — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 7:18am PST  Reply to this post

• Now we are “ALL IN THIS TOGETEHER” does not feel that great does it? Hopefully, the WGA and AMPTP will get back to the table before it is too late.

  Comment by below the line — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 7:22am PST  Reply to this post

• Chuck T, greg o, unemplyed (sic) wga — how much are they paying you?

  IATSE JE — always believable when a worker sides with his bosses over another union on strike.

  WGA East on the line

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 7:38am PST  Reply to this post

• Albuquerque?

  March 6th?

  Whatever you’re smoking pass it down the line.

  Excuse me – What. evah. Ur. smoking.

  Comment by Anonymous — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 8:04am PST  Reply to this post

• Klaatu–

  Now there’s an idea that has yet to be floated so far as I have seen. What about these useless pods?! Is there any one thing inflating production costs more than the onslaught of pods?!?!?! I defy anyone to give me one good thing that has come out of working with a pod (besides the obvious of ‘Pods giving you access to the network’… I call bullshit on that. Do good work, you’ll have all the access you need.)

  If there’s one thing I wouldn’t fight, it would be the death of the pod. When you are an executive and you get fired, tough shit. You shouldn’t get to keep making money off other people’s hard work. You got fired because you suck. Kill the pod once and for all.

  Comment by a dude — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 8:19am PST  Reply to this post

• “retaliation,” DW? I’m laughing out loud. This was planned all along! Klaatu, they were PODS that were terminated. Listen, people – you shouldn’t act so surprised … writers, if you didn’t want it to come to this, then you should have made a deal w/ the AMPTP. Don’t tell me you were misinformed! Thought you all were in it for the long-haul? Buck up + Stand Your Ground! But be forewarned, the tv industry will never, ever, ever be the same again, so buckle down and get prepared for the storm. The worst is truly yet to come

  Comment by Anon — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 8:56am PST  Reply to this post

• I’ll ignore the major AMPTP trolls polluting this thread (may they all GCAD as the Japanese would say) and suggest a new picket location: The Happiest Place on Earth. There are all sorts of motels nearby. Look at it as a vacation.

  Comment by anotherWGAmember — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 9:00am PST  Reply to this post

• AMPTP checklist
  revamp pilot season – Done
  Explore online delivery (Hulu, etc.) – done
  Kill unproductive term and development deals – done
  sign deals for internet distribution (Microsoft, Apple, etc)- done
  Negotiate with DGA first – done
  Negotiate with SAG – upcoming
  negotiate with WGA while its members are going Fi Core – upcoming

  Looks like they are on schedule to rebuild their businesses for the 21st century.

  Who is the dinosaur, the AMPTP or the WGA?

  And I’m not a paid shill, right now no one is paying me for anything.

  Comment by frustrated — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 9:27am PST  Reply to this post

• I agree with Klaatu. How about terminating some of those POD deals? Most of these guys are just frustrated former studio execs anyway. I mean, the last thing writers need is more producing entities skimming off the budgets of shows while contributing very little to the creative side. Oh, and frankly, do writers really need more notes from people who are supposed to be on their side?

  Comment by Disappointed — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 9:30am PST  Reply to this post

• This strike begs so many underlying cultural and ethical questions?

  Is it right for companies to simply throw disgusting or stupid reality shows at us night and day because it’s cheaper to produce and people will still watch? Or do the companies have a higher calling to the culture to put quality programs on the air?

  Are the arts only a business? Or are they part of a greater good for society?

  How does having the arts and entertainment under a larger conglomerate, like GE, make it better or worse? GE treats everything with ISO 9000 requirements. Can the arts be ISO 9000′d? Should they be?

  Should the arts be part of public companies? Little good has come out of this.

  How can these moguls rest easy at night knowing that the strike, which the AMPTP is prolonging, is hurting the creative industry and all of the creative economy? There has got to be something unethical and evil about that. Will no one talk about that?

  Comment by Tweety — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 9:40am PST  Reply to this post

• These deals going by the wayside is not any kind of surprise. They were going anyway. Wow, I’m seeing a lot of drama (and shilling) over nothing.

  Comment by T — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 9:49am PST  Reply to this post

• Friday night i saw a guy across from NBC and CBS with a picket sign. Did anyone catch that? I wanted to go talk to him while I was on the line.

  Comment by Bob — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 10:53am PST  Reply to this post

• So funny to see the conglomerate plants. Very subtle!

  Les Moonves makes 56 mill a year as CBS has down ratings for the last 3 years. Yet CBS can’t afford to pay their $5 million share of the HIGHEST WGA demand.

  Makes sense.

  Comment by POW — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 11:33am PST  Reply to this post

• My partner and I are among those who were just force majeured by ABC Studios.

  We were five months into a two-year deal when we walked out, leaving our steady paycheck, two pilots and giant framed picture of George Hamilton behind.

  Now, it’s all gone. For good. (Well, in theory we’ll be getting the George Hamilton picture back.)

  Are we depressed? Of course. Who wouldn’t be?

  But we knew the risk we were taking when we voted to authorize the strike.

  And it will all be worth it when we get a fair contract.

  Hang tough, everybody. Let’s win this fucking thing.

  Comment by force majeured — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 11:38am PST  Reply to this post

• Oh, no! How will the studios poorly spend their money when the strike is over?

  I wonder if they will give to other or the same writers?

  Give me a break. Executives are complete idiots.

  Comment by DA in LA — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 12:50pm PST  Reply to this post

• wow, the producer plants sure are subtle. Where ever could they be??

  Comment by bang — Saturday January 12, 2008 @ 2:17pm PST  Reply to this post