Hollywood writers' strike 2023: What is the Writers Guild of America, why are they striking and how will it affect your favourite TV shows?

If you’ve ever seen the 2008 Bond movie Quantum of Solace, you should need no further examples of why the Writers Guild strike is so important.

Screenwriters in Hollywood are officially on strike after key contract negotiations fell through. Here in the UK and Scotland, we’ve been very familiar with the impact of strikes in recent months – from schools to trains.

Across the pond, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and its 11,500 members are officially striking and have put down their pens for the first time in 15-years. It comes after negotiations between the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers – the entertainment industry’s official collective bargaining representative – failed.

The WGA is calling for tenable working conditions for all members after thousands of screenwriters say they are being unfairly paid in the age of streaming.

Signs from the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike in Hollywood.

But what does this mean for you, sitting at home?

Why is the Writers Guild of America striking?

The WGA’s 2023 strike is happening after negotiations with Hollywood’s trade union fell through. The writer’s union is looking to protect tens of thousands of screenwriters who are writing for TV and film.This also includes writers for a host of late night TV shows such as the Jimmy Kimmel Live! and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon – both of which will immediately halt production.

While programmes such as late-night talk shows are affected, the main reason this strike is happening is because many writers who work on streaming or “new media” projects fail to qualify for the WGA’s Minimum Basic Agreement (MBA).

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon is among the late night talk shows which will halt production as part of the WGA strike.

The MBA is a collective agreement which covers the benefits, rights, and protections for most of the work done by WGA members.

Every three years, this is renegotiated and the contract covers screen, television, and streaming writers. The MBA affects writers’ salaries, benefits, pensions, working conditions, residual payments, and creative rights.

This year, WGA members are seeking pay increases and structural changes to a business model that they say has made it increasingly difficult to make a living. Amid the explosion of streaming, and platforms such as Amazon, Netflix and Disney+, WGA statistics say writer-producer pay has declined 4%.

What will the Writers Guild of America strike mean for TV and film in the UK?

Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace which began production during the 2008 Hollywood writers' strike.

Well, if you’re watching TV on Freeview, Sky or Virgin Media, many shows on these platforms will be the first to be hit.

As we’ve mentioned, late night American talk shows will be the first to go, but other shows likely to be impacted are massive US network hits such as procedural dramas, like Chicago Med and Chicago Fire and comedies such as Abbott Elementary.

While these shows are undoubtedly American, many will be broadcast on UK television and if writers are on strike you can guarantee that TV providers in the UK will be filling in potentially empty gaps with reruns if there are no new episodes.

And if not reruns, we could see an increase in reality TV shows.

Strikes by the WGA can also reduce the overall quality of a project as we witnessed with the 2007 strikes.

What happened during the last Hollywood writers strike in 2007?

During the previous strikes, production on countless TV shows and movies were impacted.

We’re unlikely to see changes to films already slated for release this year or early next year, however for films looking to begin filming the strike could be seriously detrimental.

During the last writers’ strike, huge blockbusters such as Quantum of Solace, the sequel to Daniel Craig’s debut as James Bond, were seriously affected. The shooting draft for the film was completed just before the strike went ahead, but no rewrites could take place, which left Craig and the film’s director making changes as they went along.

Craig said: “We had a writer's strike. We had a script; it wasn't completed, but it was nearly completed. The movie kind of works. It's not Casino Royale, and that was always going to be… It was like, literally, troubling second album syndrome. In a way, we could not top Casino… It's easy to say that. Of course, we wanted to top Casino Royale, but, you know…”

Director Michael Bay also had his work impacted during the strike, and has even called his 2009 movie Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen “crap” because of it.

TV shows such as Conan O’Brien’s had no writers, and there were even segments of the show where O’Brien spent time spinning his wedding ring to fill airtime. Other dramas such as Heroes, which was picked up after a strong first series, ended up with a disappointing second season written during the strike. Blossoming shows such as Pushing Daisies – now a cult favourite – were cancelled before they could truly meet their audience, and critically acclaimed programmes such as Lost and Breaking Bad saw episodes cut from the schedule as the strikes kicked in.

And if the Hollywood writers’ strikes continue, we are very likely to see see similar situations happening across the industry – perhaps even worsened by emerging AI and other technologies.