Big news! Hollywood won’t implode on itself…or, wait, maybe it will. Variety reports that, as has been widely rumored all week, the Director’s Guild of America has come to an agreement with the AMPTP regarding their new contract. No, the DGA is not the guild that has paralyzed Hollywood with a strike for the last few months, but they are a group that could have seriously shut down Hollywood if a strike had occurred.
The big question now is if the Writer’s Guild of America—a.k.a. the WGA, a.k.a. the strikers who ruined the Golden Globes—will accept a contract on the same terms as the DGA’s, which would end the current strike and mean we get more than 8 episodes of Lost, not to mention the Oscars. The DGA got many of the things the WGA has been asking for, namely a bigger cut of the money made from movies and TV shows shown online. They’ll get residuals from both Internet downloads and streaming video, which will be especially key for TV directors whose shows are already making a killing online.
The WGA has not yet said whether or not they would accept a similar contract, but Awards Daily has their official statement: “We will work with the full membership of both Guilds to discuss our strategies for our own negotiations and contract goals and how they may be affected by such a deal. For over a month, we have been urging the conglomerates to return to the table and bargain in good faith. They have chosen to negotiate with the DGA instead.” Burn! The WGA is clearly irritated that the producers guild went toe to toe with the DGA instead of running away from the bargaining table, but maybe not pissed enough to throw away the deal.
For now we should just all cross our fingers that this is a deal acceptable to the WGA, and that things in Hollywood can get back to business. On the other hand, if the WGA doesn’t accept, it could cause a major rift between the directors and writers that could make things even uglier than they are now. No one likes being out of work, and the WGA would continue holding the industry by the throat should they refuse to settle.
