Writers, Producers Reach Tentative Deal to Bring End to Writers’ Strike

Written by: Tony Lazlo, CC2K Staff Writer

Movie and TV writers across the country could be back at work as early as Monday if the western and eastern branches of the WGA approve a new deal offered by producers.

It looks like the writer’s strike is over.

I don’t have time to boil down the entire Variety article, but here are a few key excerpts:

• The WGA West board of directors and the WGA East Council will meet Sunday to formally endorse the contract. And writers could be back at work as early Monday, depending on whether the WGA’s ruling bodies decide whether to end the three-month strike at those Sunday meetings.

• “It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery,” WGA officials said. “It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, ‘When they get paid, we get paid.’ “

• The resolution of the strike will enable TV networks to salvage the remaining TV season and pilot season along with permitting scribes to begin working again on film scripts. The end to the strike would also permit the Academy Awards telecast on Feb. 24 to proceed without disruption.