EXCLUSIVE: (Updated with a correction: The AMPTP can talk with the WGA while negotiating with the DGA, we regret the error) With the clock ticking and writers out on the picket lines all over town, the Directors Guild of America and the studios are far from even the framework of a deal.
Two weeks into their negotiations, the Lesli Linka Glatter-led union and the Alliance of Motion Picture Producers and Television Producers haven’t “agreed on anything significant,” well-positioned sources say. Not entirely surprising at this juncture in the media-blacked-out talks, the reality of the situation extinguishes the rumor flying around town today that an agreement is close.
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“There is a process, it takes time,” a high ranking DGA member told Deadline. “Everyone in the rooms is following [the process] in full knowledge of what’s happening on the picket lines.” Another DGA member added of the pickets and protests: “There’s a lot of noise outside, in front of the studios, but negotiators can’t get too caught up in all that. We have to stay focused, we have a lot of ground to cover before any agreement is in sight.”
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In fact, having first sat down face-to-face on May 10, just over a week after the Writers Guild went out on strike on May 2, the DGA and AMPTP negotiating committees having been emphasizing a modular approach. After the initial meetings in the AMPTP’s Sherman Oaks offices, the two sides broke off into smaller sub-committees to spotlight particular topics of contention like “securing wage increases that address inflation,” as the guild made public its priorities earlier this month.
Neither the AMPTP nor the DGA responded to request for comment on the state of the talks.
Looking at the calendar, the Jon Avnet-chaired 80-member DGA negotiating committee and the Carol Lombardini-fronted AMPTP still have a fair amount of time to come to an agreement. The DGA’s current contract with the studios and producers expires on June 30.
Like almost all Hollywood guild talks, this one will likely come down to the final week to prove either successful or not. With the town and industry at an inflection point in this streaming era, there is always a possibility the generally more moderate DGA could join the more militant WGA on the picket lines. However, a DGA strike would be an even greater break with tradition than the Directors Guild giving up its first-place negotiations spot to the scribes earlier this year.
The now 19,000-member strong DGA last went on strike back when Ronald Reagan was in the White House. That LA 1987 labor action lasted for just three hours and 15 minutes on the East Coast (or five minutes less than the running time of Godfather II), and for 15 minutes on the West Coast before a new deal was struck with the studios.
Certainly, many in the WGA are looking anxiously to see where the DGA ends up. With not so recent history in mind, more than a few writers have said that a deal for the latter could prove a blow to the former as it did in the last scribes’ strike in 2008.
Residuals aside, there are many issues that differ this time round between what the WGA wants from the AMPTP and what the DGA is seeking. Still, the two guilds have been publicly very supportive of each other. A number of individual directors have taken to the picket lines with the writers over the past three weeks, and Avnet was onstage at the Shrine Auditorium for the WGA rally on May 3 with scribes’ brass and other union leadership such as Teamsters Local 399 boss Lindsay Dougherty.
Due to the architecture of Tinseltown labor talks, now that the AMPTP is negotiating with the DGA, they are unlikely to engage in renewed bartering with the WGA – not that the studios and the scribes were exactly beating down the doors to get back around the table after their five-week long talks ended in acrimony on the evening of May 1.
At the same time, while the DGA and the AMPTP have stayed silent during their negotiations, the guild has been very busy online.
The DGA posted this on Instagram on May 23 featuring some pretty high profile members expressing pride in being in the guild.
The DGA posted this on May 21, with tweets from Sen. Bernie Sanders and other politicians supporting the DGA at the bargaining table.
Flying the solidarity flag digitally, the guild also posted this on Instagram last week with members, including board member Ava DuVernay, expressing their pride in being a part of the guild.
David Robb contributed to this post.
This means the DGA is gonna cave and do a deal. They are just asking for their cookie and pat on the head from the AMPTP. They are gonna screw over the entire town. Unreal. Worthless.
Not the entire town. Obvi / read below
sir daniel, please post under your normal name. Thanks. Loser.
Anonymous – please post under your normal name. Thanks. Loser.
so you admit this was you then? Wow. What a loser.
Not the entire town. By any means.
MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU ARE LABOR!!! Regardless where you are on the pecking order. You are still labor/a worker. Stand strong with your fellow union members!!!!
Agreed. There’s been a downward pressure on salaries across the board and up and down the pecking order for years.
First with below the line crews; no over scale, area agreements at $10 less an hour compared to LA rates, no holiday pay for the first two seasons, side letters and tier feature rates.
Then they went after feature writers, killing multi-step deals, not honoring quotes, more and more free writing.
Now they’re coming after TV writers with mini-rooms and even more free work just to get the series into development.
Directors will be next. Why should we have one director directing an entire episode when we can have one director handling the dramatic scenes on stage, one director handling the action, on director handling the location work and one director handling all of our post? We’ll just move the cast around. More efficient for us. And now that we think about it, AI can handle post, we’ll just feed it the footage. And we’ll use AI to adjust the performance in post, so you only four takes instead of five or no reshoots or whatever bullshit they come up with.
In their eyes we’re all just standing next to the belt on the assembly line and that connects all of us.
Everyone needs to push back.
I think the customers should go on strike and boycott the trash that’s being distributed by Hollywood.
One man’s trash, is another’s treasure. Your proposal would be to boycott all of entertainment. Wow, what a boring society that would be.
We are there already. Marry me and super Mario brothers make old yelled look like shakespeare.
Agreed. Even better: audiences should develop their tastes and SEEK OUT the entertainment they want instead of hoping Disney Plus can feed it to them.
My favorite kind of activist: demand mom and dad change, instead of doing the work of an adult themselves.
Translation: grow up.
Corporate Greed of top epsilons and investors are hard to over come.
Hope the writers guild comes on top.
Not really. We can ethically use our cash or withhold it in search of what we desire. These companies are attempting to condition you to paying them 10 bucks rent a month. Take your money and invest it in entertainment that feeds the intellect and the soul. This is hard, but it is rewarding. Try it.
With the WGA strike on going, potentially DGA and SAG strike up coming up it doesn’t look encourageing at all. Assuming the WGA doesn’t come back and DGA/sAG go out, it would appear that this coming fall TV season as well as movies and entertainment will likely be re runs and other filler drivel. Said another way visualize the Titanic after striking the iceberg, with the band loudly playing as the ship (TV shows and movies) temporarily sinks.
That being said, a season or year without entertainment is a small sacrifice from everyone in order to get the proper compensation. I have heard that all the folks that have been thru this before have saved up money (some large sums) knowing all the negotiations/potential strikes were coming, so they will take family and leave on lengthy travel and vacations. They were the smart ones! Its been rumored that others didn’t save a dime, squandered all their cash, figured there wouldn’t be any strikes and soon will be desperately scavenging for work.
It will also be a chance for the networks to jettison some border line, less then successful shows once everybody comes back.
As to the fans they will come back with time. If the strikes take 6 months to a year, fans may need 1-2 years as they will have gotten into the habit of doing different activities, watching other entertainment, etc. Bottom line is don’t cancel any shows based on ratings for a couple of years as the network may make some horrific mistakes.
“small sacrifice”…. Yes. losing my house and the 9 months of emergency funds I had is definitely small in the grand scheme of things.
If things keep going the way they’re going, you would lose them anyway. I lost my house and emergency fund two years ago. Why? Because the work I was getting couldn’t pay the bills. The same work I did 10 years ago that bought me my house in the first place.
If this labor action is a threat to your short term, then I don’t think you have any sense of reality. What about the studio layoffs? You don’t care so long as you keep your job. Those people can lose their houses, and their emergency funds, so that Zas can fatten his pay check. That’s cool with you? You need to straighten out your priorities. Either you want this business to last so you can pay your mortgage into the future or you want the ticking time bomb of some individual millionaire to decide that cutting your job will help him hit another zero on his bonus check. Why tie your fate to one man that doesn’t care about you vs. a whole group of people who want to live and survive and stabilize this business into the future?
I don’t imagine anyone outside of Hollywood cares. I know I don’t.
Clearly you care enough to read the article and post a comment.
Cool story.
It’s the kind of story a non-union writer would write!