Hammond On Cannes: Robert Redford’s Brave New Role … 
Hot Trailer: Jennifer Aniston And Jason Sudeikis’ … 
Warner Bros Tells Space Story, From The Bra Designers Who … 
Brad Pitt’s Plan B Banner Promotes Jeremy Kleiner As … 
Hot Trailer: ‘Don Jon’ 
Billy Crystal-Starring Comedy From Matt Nix & Larry … 
UPDATE: Toronto Lands World Premiere Of Godfrey … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ … 
CBS Reups Tony Awards Through 2018 
HBO, FX Lead Critics’ Choice TV Awards — But … 
Hammond On Cannes: A New Day Comes To The Fest As HBO and … 
Cannes: Lionsgate Acquires U.S. On Guillaume Canet’s … 
Cannes: Radius-TWC Buys Keanu Reeves’ Helming Debut … 
Cannes: Fleming Reflects And Finds Talented Trio A Breath … 
Hot Trailer: ‘Man Of Steel’ 
Former Digital Domain CEO & Auditors Sued For Fraud By … 
Fox Acquires ‘Narc’; Zac Efron Attached To Play … 
ABC’s ‘Nashville’ Undergoes Production … 
CBS Wins Season & Ties Sweep In Demo; ABC Tops Adults … 
Mike Lobell Adds Cast To ‘Eisner,’ Plots … 
Sony Shares Rise On Report That It Will Consider … 
Is Big Media rewarding those writers who went back to work during the 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike? I know that several have since been promoted or received deals. Today, Disney’s ABC Daytime replaced Bob Guza Jr with Garin Wolf as head writer of General Hospital effective immediately. Not that Guza didn’t have an army of detractors among the soap’s fans. But while Wolf is certainly uber-qualified as the recipient of two Daytime Emmys and part of the GH staff for nearly 15 years, he also is infamous among daytime writers for opting to go Fi-Core during the WGA strike when he stepped in as GH head writer while his guild brethren were walking the picket lines. (Only a handful of WGA members went financial core, i.e. resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of the union contract.) Interesting how the ABC Daytime news release made specal mention of Wolf winning a Writer’s Guild Award for his past work on General Hospital – while not mentioning that the post-strike WGA excoriated Wolf as one of the “puny few who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
Good for him. Clearly smarter than the rest, deserves it.
He didn’t have the right to work during the strike.
He’s not the only one!!!
What about the dirty thirty… some of which I believe have pilots that were just picked up, and a few others who’s shows were just renewed.
Howz about we name some REAL names here, Nikki. And not just the GH-dim-wit.
You know, I get it. I get the union loyalty and the importance of it. But I also know that soaps gotta stay on the air regardless of strikes, and soaps were in a fragile enough condition by 2008 without the strike, so I get that too.
The vitriol here is misplaced, and should go towards Guza’s contempt for the viewers and the show’s history. Maybe they could’ve picked someone whose name was less tarnished by the strike, but if you people got this angry about half of what Guza wrote years ago, maybe things would be a little different right now.
Why do soaps need to stay on the air any more than other shows?
Other shows that bring in a shitload more money and employ many more people.
I can’t say I support appointing a Fi-Core writer but tell me why not one journalist has gone after Dena Higley the HW at Days of our Lives, Hogan Sheffer and Maria Bell HW at The Young and the Restless who have been HW on their respective shows for 2 years now and were all Fi-Core also. Its not just ABC its also Sony Entertainment who should be held responsible for allowing these HW to be employed by their shows. Or is only ABC culpable here.
Not interested in the witch hunt at all. We are trying to move forward in an ever changing landscape, and almost none of us want to look back and point fingers.
Onward gentlemen.
AS A WGA MEMBER, I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THIS GUY. The wga is a joke, the strike did nothing for us. The wga still does nothing for us, the only time they are around is when it’s time to collect. They just accepted another shitty deal on our behalf. Blow up the wga and start over, with writers in leadership positions, not producers!
soaps need to survive however they can and head writers who create hour long content 5 days a week do not grow on trees.
im impressed with the quality and maturity of these comments. see, nikki, not everyone needs to take your bait. this was a reasonable and understandable decision on abc/gh’s part.
For any who wondered how big a component union-busting was to the murder of the soaps, got your answer?
Far more despicable are the feature writers who went fi-core. Oh, wait, was it just one guy?
Let’s be honest.
It’s all Craig Mazin’s fault.
So the guy is “uber-talented” and an Emmy winner and he is rewarded with a job and promotion. He did put his “own narrow interests over the greater good?” Who the heck wrote that phrase? Marx? Lenin? If I am building a house I want the best guys and gals doing the framing not someone who can claim he walked a picket line for the greater good. Do you even know how that sounds to real working people in this economy?
Wolf did go fi-core, however he did not write during the strike. He made outlines prior to the strike and non union writers did breakdown and dialogue (mainly producers)
I think people should feel free to do what is best for them and not black mailed into carrying out the agenda for a union they were forced to join.
Some people would be fine doing their jobs without a union but in professions that force people to be in a union to work what do you expect.
Most all unions needto create more transperancy and acceptance. That so many unions survive because they are able to force people against their will to join tells you a lot.
A union that forces you to accept things unconditionally are no better than the companies that originally created the need for unions.
Certainly can’t tolerate producers rewarding writers who do a good job and show up for work.
AMEN TO THAT!!!
As a WGA member myself, I echo (although not quite as vociferously) George’s comments. The WGA have badly let us down. Not just in the last round (I voted to remain on strike), but in cowardly capitulating this time.
The stars were in alignment this year for all the Guilds to finally put the AMPTP in its place. They failed, and they should be thoroughly ashamed all-round.
As for Garin Wolf, he doesn’t deserve to be a member of the union.
Depressing. This man’s actions undermined the sacrifices and bravery of his colleagues, as well as the thousands of people before him who paved the way for health care, etc. Making matters worse is that he crossed the line while members of his own staff didn’t. How does one live with himself?
George, why don’t you get involved? We DID get a shitty deal this time, partly because of selfish jerks like this GH writer. John Wells makes me sick. Unfortunately, corporations now own Washington, and the WGA was going against a stacked deck. The entire middle class of Los Angeles has evaporated.
And Garin Wolf played his role in that.
Oh, who cares. As long as Guza’s out, and hopefully better writing will follow, that’s all this soap fan cares about.
Thanks, Nikki, for calling out this douchebag.
I hear you, Nikki, but the real story is buried even deeper than Wolf’s fi-core status: that he’s being given the reins to usher GH into the sunset. ABC just did the same with All My Children and hired a longtime writer with a knowledge of the show’s history to take it out to pasture.
With the Couric talker in the wings, GH has a ticking time clock on it, promise.
I’m just glad Guza is gone for whatever reason he was a horrible storyteller.
However Wolfe Fi-core writer or not is probably cheaper than Guza …GH has slashed its budget and I’m sure Guza holding down two jobs as Headwriter and Consulting Producer (with his wife it makes three) was too costly…its rumored Disney wants to sell ABC so its cutting down production cost to help the sale.
Good for him. Union-busting scab or not, he has the history and Guza ruined GH over the last decade (it’s The Sonny and Carly Show!). But I do agree with Sparky. He’s only there to head up the final couple or three years. All soaps will be gone within five years, tops. It’s a dead genre.
In fact, let’s just turn all of network television into one, big reality show cluster-fest. Rollerball, anyone?
The only positive thing I can possibly say about anybody who goes fi-core is at least they had the balls to do it the legit and legal way, as opposed to all the backstabbers who have it both ways who work non-union while 1) hoping they don’t get caught; 2) Knowing if they do, all our guilds are pusses who will merely slap them on the hand, or at worst, fine them a pittance tiny percentage of even the money they made off of the work violations they’re charged with.
But at the end of the day, is a street walking whore in essence wildly different from a “legit” licensed prostitute in north nevada or somewhere? Nope. Not to the (at least when it comes to actors) ultra rare ones of us who never do non-union work, period, let alone during a strike. A whore is a whore.
Never met anybody who undermines their guilds by stabbing everybody in the back who doesn’t blather on when pressed with some crazy selfish “I need to work, so it’s okay for me, but I expect everybody else to make astonishing sacrifices for our mutual benefit, so you all just sacrifice for me while I stab our team in the back because I need the money from work but you don’t” absolute bullshit.
SAG and more-so AFTRA are absolutely pathetic “roll over, play dead, never bother enforcing a vast majority of contract violations brought to their attention” entities too, but what little they offer in terms of strength in numbers is a boat load better than the whacked stuff that went on before they existed.
The episodes written during the strike by Garin Wolf were some of the best that year. I’m so excited.
Thanks Nikki for shedding more light on this issue. I remember when I first attained my WGA membership. I was so excited. Years later, I remember walking the line with other writers. At the time there were murmurings of writers/exec producers who were crossing the line. Some who were apparently on the negotiating board during the strike. I ignored this as the typical “game” in Hollywood so many of us must play. But then my wife became pregnant and I found myself denied medical insurance by failing to reach the minimum earnings by fifteen dollars. The WGA informed me that a residual check that covered that amount was inapplicable due to its reaching the carry-over limit. The WGA is in sad disrepair.
Why would a network punish a writer for turning their back on the union.
The networks want to break the unions, of course they will be given jobs and series pick ups. Respect of peers, no.