The world of entertainment is fast approaching a critical juncture: one that, if crossed, will have massive repercussions that will be felt for years to come. It will cause shows to be cancelled, movies to be delayed or ruined, even resurrect the ghosts of rejected screenplays to get rushed into production. I am, of course, referring to the looming Hollywood Writers Strike that could go into effect as soon as next week.
It’s been a decade since the last writers strike, and unless the Writers Guild and studios can come to an understanding before the current contract between them expires, we’re in for several years awful TV and terrible movies. The 2007 strike saw 12,000 writers leave their jobs for months, causing a massive, industry-wide shakeup of the programs you and I watch on a daily basis.
The strike was, for instance, credited with the cancellation of Heroes, previously a paragon of exceptional characters and intriguing storylines. It caused Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to go into production without a script, as Michael Bay believed that it would end before they actually had to film anything (although I’m not sure what magic team of script monkeys could have turned that movie around).
X-Men Origins: Wolverine similarly had to go use a barbones script that included no written dialog for Ryan Reynold’s Deadpool (which, in hindsight, is probably why they ended up sewing his mouth shut). G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, Terminator Salvation and even Star Trek were all adversely affected by the strike, being unable to revise scripts or add in lines during production. It is even credited for the mess that was Dragonball Evolution as studios, strapped for movies to put into theaters, dusted off rejected spec scripts just to get something out for audiences to see.
While late night talk shows were somewhat spared thanks to individual agreements that they worked out with the Guild, most shows were not so lucky. As writers were unable to return to work to pen new material, many shows went on hiatus, rushed out incomprehensible scrawl or were cancelled. This, in turn, lead to a rise in reality shows, which didn’t require a script to shoot.
If the Guild ultimately decides to strike, we can expect similar results. TV will be hit first and hardest, with the effects to the film industry coming around 2019.
Game of Thrones, which has long since run out of novels to base its episodes off of, would likely get hit by a strike, as would second seasons of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, not to mention the upcoming Inhumans series. DC’s upcoming slate, seeking to commemorate the Dark Knight’s 80th anniversary, would be in utter shambles: affecting The Batman, Gotham City Sirens and Batgirl. Similarly dire, Marvel could have damage done to Captain Marvel, Avengers 4 and Spider-Man: Homecoming‘s sequel.
It might not come to that, of course. Nobody wants a repeat of the 2009 movie season and both sides are desperately working to come to some kind of agreement on the matter. Even if it does, the 1988 writers strike wasn’t nearly as damaging, thanks in part to dedicated screenwriters getting scripts in just hours before it took effect (including 1989’s Batman) and British writers who were willing to cross picket lines to take up the work Americans left unfinished.
Let’s just hope that they can work something out, because Heaven help anybody who messes with my Spider-Man fix.
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