If you waste time at various entertainment-based websites, you'll find there's not a lot of sympathy out there for the Writer's Guild strike. The attitude seems to be, Hey these people are hacks and don't deserve what they're already making, and besides, now i can't watch new episodes of the shows I claim to hate.
But the studios, bless their poisoned hearts, appear to be unwittingly drumming up support for the writers by going out of their way to appear dickish.
Universal has not only suspended production on all scripted shows--perfectly understandable, with no scripts available--but has invoked the force majeure clause in the actors' contracts, suspending them on half pay for now, threatening to terminate them altogether if the strike continues. Universal is said to be considering taking similar actions against the writers of their shows.
Uh, excuse me, but...why? Whenever the strike is settled, don't you want to resume production of your shows? If you piss off the cast and writers, aren't they likely to go elsewhere? What is the plan here? Surely the shows you are producing have some value, and if they do, isn't it because the audience has some emotional investment in the characters? And if suddenly those characters are played by different actors, do you really think audiences won't notice?
Even dumber is the action taken by Sony, which has told castmembers of two of its sitcoms they're being put on unpaid hiatus--but are still contractually bound to the studio.
The Screen Actor's Guild is claiming this is an outright violation of the terms of the actors' contracts. Since SAG is mulling the possibility of its own strike next year, pissing off the most visible of Hollywood players doesn't seem like a wise move.
Yes, many actors are grotesquely overpaid--Nicholas Cage makes twenty million per picture? Seriously?--but the fact is, most people go to movies because they want to see movie stars. The studios (or more accurately, their controlling conglomerates) must realize this, right?
Right?
