How the 2023 writers strike echoes the one from 2007

Entertainment

By Brian Tallerico

June 3, 2023 | 8:00am

The writer’s strike of 2007 permanently derailed once-promising shows, damaged hit dramas, helped make reality television the norm, and quite possibly led to a Presidency. Like the many Hollywood reboots and remakes, it’s all about to happen again.

Just after midnight on May 2, the 20,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) put down their pens – echoing a work stoppage on November 5, 2007 that would last 100 days. Debates over DVD residuals and profits from then-new streaming services fueled that strike. The cover song this time focuses on, among other things, streaming residuals, staffing guarantees, and stipulations over the use of A.I., which WGA chief negotiator Ellen Stutzman warns could be used as “plagiarism machines” to craft scripts without writers. 

According to a WGA memo, the strike is costing Hollywood’s economy $30 million a day. Jack Kyser, the chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, estimated that the 2007-2008 strike cost his state $2.5 billion; this time the estimate of potential damages are likely to top at least $3 billion. Midway through the last strike, Kyser told the L.A. City Council, “It’s going to be painful and it’s going to get more painful as he goes.” The same could be said about today.

As workers go unpaid, entertainment companies are stubbornly losing more money than the writers are asking for with the new contracts. According to the WGA, the demands are less than 0.1% of Disney’s annual revenue and around 0.2% of Netfflix’s. And other guilds are threatening to join the picket line. Even politicians are lending a hand, with Rep. Adam Schiff standing with them last month – echoing one-time Presidential candidate John Edwards who joined protestors back in 2007.

With the advent of social media, audiences today are more tuned-in to the debate than in 2007, and the studios face a more vocal backlash if it lingers on. In May, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav was barraged by chants of “Pay your writers” as he gave a commencement speech at Boston University. 

The students may be too young, but their parents likely remember what happened to Heroes and Pushing Daisies, two of the highest-profile shows damaged by the 2007 strike. And such damage is already happening again.

After a promising first season, NBC’s hit Heroes never recovered from the strike. A story arc planned for 24 episodes suddenly had to unfold in 11, leading to a multi-season reconfiguration of the show, and the plotting fell apart. (For example, one character’s storyline was so truncated that she literally was left in the future.) 

A similar fate befell the excellent Pushing Daisies, which saw its first season shortened to nine episodes by the strike and then a 10-month delay for its sophomore outing. It had no chance to build an audience once the strike killed off momentum. Star Kristin Chenoweth flatly stated at the time, “I think the writers’ strike did it,” when interviewed about Pushing Daisies’ demise. 

The sharp scale of the fallout should come as little surprise. “It’s to no one’s advantage…to have the creative process interrupted,” says Jonathan Handel, author of Hollywood on Strike! An Industry at War in the Internet Age. “It’s not simply a matter of ‘Oh well, let’s just restart when this is over.’ The best shows respond to…the political and cultural moment. If you start writing for one moment and the moment has changed, what do you do with that?”

What will be the second-season casualty of the 2023 strike?

It could be Disney+’s critical darling Andor, where creator Tony Gilroy ceased all writing and non-writing duties on May 1st. Or maybe it’s Apple TV+’s hit Severance, which was already running behind on production and has now had to pause production. Both shows were critical and commercial hits and the work stoppage will be blamed if they suffer a sophomore slump. 

What about the shows forced to rush through production once the strike ends?

“You can’t just flip a switch and turn the lights back on,” notes Cynthia Littleton, Co-Editor-in-Chief at Variety and author of 2013’s TV on Strike: Why Hollywood Went to War Over the Internet. “A strike is physically and emotionally exhausting. It will take a minute for people to be ready.”

Back in 2007, Friday Night Lights was renewed for 22 episodes in its second season, but production shut down after only 15 and the show’s low ratings and crazy plotting that year almost killed it off. After the strike, writers were forced to quickly resolve bizarre plotlines or drop them altogether, such as the total disappearance of the character Santiago (Benny Ciaramello) who simply didn’t return for the third season. 

This time, critical and commercial darlings like Hacks, Yellowjackets, Stranger Things, The Last of Us, and Euphoria have had production halted while other shows are struggling to finish, including Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+, Evil on Paramount+ and The Penguin on Max. The longer the strike goes on, the stronger its inevitable impact will be felt throughout the creative process.

How strong? “It very much depends on…the degree to which a show was creatively delicate,” said Handel. “A procedural such as Chicago P.D. is going to be less of a problem than a serialized show such as Yellowjackets.”

New shows could be hurt before they even get a chance to get their footing. “The biggest domino effect will be having to reschedule production once the labor clouds lift,” says Littleton. “There will undoubtedly be shows…that do not come together because schedules of top creative talent and crew members simply can’t be reconciled in the future.” 

Shift backwards to 2007-2008 and programs that appeared promising early in their runs were forced to swim upstream once their writers hit the picket lines. The showrunner of FOX’s Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was only able to participate in post-production on the premiere, leading non-WGA members to handle the other eight episodes. The show ultimately debuted mid-strike (in January 2008) with no momentum, leading to a shortened first season and underdeveloped second one. Writer Zack Stentz recently tweeted, “The Sarah Connor Chronicles had our season cut short and lost half our ratings because of our extra long hiatus. We never really recovered.”

A spin-off of Prison Break titled Cherry Hill was forever shelved. USA’s The 4400 never returned after a fourth season cliffhanger. Even bona fide hits suffered setbacks. 24 took a whole year off. FOX finished episodes of Family Guy without the involvement of creator Seth Macfarlane, while the casts of SNL and 30 Rock did a live performance at ​​New York’s Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in November 2007 just to keep working. 

While the impact is more immediate on television, films were hit just as hard during the last strike. The most notorious was the 007 flick Quantum of Solace, which started production with no one on hand for rewrites. Director Marc Forster reportedly wanted to quit, and Daniel Craig was rewriting his own dialogue. It led to mediocre reviews – 64% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to 94% for 2006’s Casino Royale – and the lowest Cinemascore grade (B-) for any Bond film from the Craig era. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is another franchise flick infamously impacted by the strike with star Ryan Reynolds claiming he wrote all his own dialogue. 

Without guild members to handle on-set rewrites, Marvel recently shut down work on Blade, putting its planned September 2024 release in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Aziz Ansari has struggled to get his directorial debut Good Fortune off the ground—a complaint about Bill Murray’s on-set behavior already forced one shutdown —and now filming has been paused again.  

While the others wait and see, ABC has released a Fall schedule made up almost entirely of reality programs. This means that several of their shows potentially won’t even try to make Fall premieres, and will instead drop midseason, such as The Good Doctor, The Conners, Abbott Elementary, and a show that was on during the last strike, Grey’s Anatomy. Most are likely to have truncated seasons and could suffer the storytelling fates of 2007 programs like Heroes and Friday Night Lights. 

Pivoting to reality isn’t a new option. 

In 2007, the networks ramped up orders for reality TV, leading to extra seasons of shows like Big Brother and The Amazing Race. Despite having parted ways with The Apprentice, NBC pushed out its spin-off The Celebrity Apprentice during the strike. People watched in part because there was so little else on the air. The show rekindled Donald Trump’s celebrity status and, in some ways, eventually leading him to the White House.

Only time will tell which reality star winds up in the White House this time. 

Meanwhile, WGA writers may soon have some company on the picket line: Union-affiliated actors will vote whether to authorize a strike next week, which could lead to the first dual strike since 1960. And the Directors Guild could follow, leading to a first-ever picket-line trifecta. But even that may not be the end.

The current strike arrives amid a clash of industry diverging interests that could easily make it longer than the last one.

“This time around the obvious difference is that consumers already have so much available at their fingertips — new shows, recent shows, vintage shows going back decades,” says Littleton. “It’s a lot easier for the major streaming players to shuffle things around and keep people engaged.”

Adds Handel about the power of the streaming platforms, “Netflix, Amazon, and Apple would be perfectly happy to see the Fall broadcast season destroyed because it would drive viewers looking for fresh content to their services.”

He ends with three terrifying words: “I’m not optimistic.”

Brian Tallerico is Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com and President of the Chicago Film Critics Association