Hollywood writers’ strike: What’s happening now

The Writers Guild of America has been on strike for more than 100 days, as writers have found it increasingly difficult to earn a living wage and are asking for limitations regarding the use of AI.

Arizona Central reporter Bill Goodykoontz explains why the strike is ongoing and what may happen next.

“The writers, they don’t want for one thing, they don’t want AI to start writing scripts. At this point where generative AI is at the moment, I don’t think that’s really an issue you can kind of tell things AI has written but more so than that, they don’t want their stuff fed into the machine to train AI,” Goodkoontz said.

Along with pay, AI has been an increasing concern for the WGA and the studios say they are prepared to discuss AI but more needs to be decided.

“They’re afraid of what it’s going to do to their jobs, they’re afraid of what it’s going to do to their future, and they’re definitely afraid of what it’s already doing to their livelihood,” Goodykoontz said.

The strike includes both writers and actors, many movies and shows alike have been pushed back mainly due to union rules stating that actors aren’t allowed to promote their movies or shows during the strike.

“It’s not just the writers who are on strike the actors are also on strike so they went on strike in July so, the whole thing is shut down. Basically, it’s going to start to affect schedules. Dune 2, for instance, got pushed yesterday into 2024 that was going to be one of the big fall movies,” Goodykoontz said.

Writers have also seen smaller paychecks due to the shift from traditional network TV to streaming services.

“It won’t be a mortal wound, there’s always going to be TV and movies in some fashion. I think this is already changing the industry, there’s bad feeling on both sides no doubt about that but I think one thing that it’s really going to have to do is change the way steaming services account for success,” Goodykoontz said.