Writers Guild Invites Hollywood Studios To Break Away From AMPTP For Strike Negotiations
With Hollywood's writers and actors on strike, and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) at a standstill in negotiations with both the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, the WGA has suggested that legacy studios could break away to negotiate their own deal and get productions up and running again.
Following reports of tension and disagreement among AMPTP members — which include streamers like Amazon, Netflix, and Apple alongside venerable Hollywood studios such as Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount, and Universal — and increasing financial pressures for some of those members, the WGA (per The Hollywood Reporter) told its members that some studios are becoming impatient with "AMPTP paralysis" and have already begun to engage separately:
One executive said they had reviewed our proposals, and though they did not commit to a specific deal, said our proposals would not affect their company's bottom line and that they recognized they must give more than usual to settle this negotiation. Another said they needed a deal badly. Those same executives — and others — have said they are willing to negotiate on proposals that the AMPTP has presented to the public as deal breakers. On every single issue we are asking for we have had at least one legacy studio executive tell us they could accommodate us.
The WGA's statement goes on to say that it is open to negotiating "with one or more of the major studios, outside the confines of the AMPTP, to establish the new WGA deal." As far as the guild is concerned, "There is no requirement that the companies negotiate through the AMPTP."
The AMPTP responded to this statement within a few hours, claiming that its member studios are "aligned" and "negotiating together to reach a resolution," and maintaining that "any suggestion to the contrary is false." But as months of strikes stretch on with no resolution in sight, some AMPTP members have good reason to be impatient.
Old studio titans vs. new tech giants
The WGA isn't alone in suggesting that the AMPTP model might be the great fatberg responsible for clogging up Hollywood's pipeline. Earlier this week I myself made the case that it's time for a Hollywood break-up, and I'm far from the first person to do so.
Barry Diller, former Paramount Pictures chairman and founder of the Fox Broadcasting Corporation, discussed the shutdown on the podcast "On with Kara Swisher" in late August. He pointed the finger at Netflix as the "architects of [the] strike" and offered his own take on what legacy studios should do next:
"One fundamental thing is they should certainly get out of the room with their deepest, fiercest, and almost conclusive enemy, Netflix, and probably with Apple and Amazon. Because Netflix is in one business and they are the rulers of the business they're in. The other two, Apple and Amazon Prime, are in completely different businesses. And Amazon Prime is in completely different businesses that have no business model relative to production of movies and television. It's just something they do to support their Prime or something."
It's true that the strikes appear, superficially at least, to have been a boon for Netflix. The company's stock price has risen from $317.55 on the day the WGA strike began to $442.80 at close of trading on Friday this week. Amazon and Apple stocks have also risen and have likely not been impacted by the strikes at all, since for both companies their annual spend on original content is basically a rounding error compared to their total operating expenses.
Meanwhile, over those same four months, share prices for legacy studios Disney and Paramount have dropped precipitously. If the AMPTP doesn't return to the negotiating table soon, then someone else might.