The Great Writers Strike of 2023 is On!

Studios Barely Avoid SAG-AFTRA Strike by Extending Negotiation Date

> Studios Barely Avoid SAG-AFTRA Strike by Extending Negotiation Date

"Okay, that's it, we're going to strike."

"Hey, you said we had until 11 July."

"No, we've been very clear that July 1st is our deadline."

"This notice you gave us says 11 July."

"You just squeezed another 1 in there, didn't you?"

"You can't prove that we did."

". . . Fiiiine."

https://twitter.com/web_rant/status/1675603142313115648?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

They’re planning on doing a View-Master and Magic 8 Ball movie as well. Let’s hope that they kill this as a result of the strike.

Magic 8 Ball, is there a Magic 8 Ball movie in the works?

/me shakes Magic 8 Ball

Magic 8 Ball:

Wouldn't read too much into it at this point, any organisation with a library of IP is constantly pitching ideas on how to use it, knowing that ultimately most won't stack up.

Across different companies I've seen countless examples (and been part of quite a few pitches) of the same thing happening with games.

Okay, but stop me if you think that these are movie plots that they wouldn't attempt with some of this stuff:

Magic 8 Ball: The main character finds or is given a Magic 8 Ball, doesn't think much of it, but for a lark, asks it a question, gets a "spooky" seeming answer, and then becomes dependent upon the M8B for help. You can play it as a comedy or a horror film, or both. Heck, you don't even have to make the M8B the focus of the film and still have it work as a giant commercial for the toy. One of the characters in the Fast and Furious movies gets a new M8B shifter that not only can display answers to your question, but is also tied into an AI program that can provide useful information for characters in the movie, and somewhat helps save the day. And fuck you, if you think folks in Hollywood wouldn't see that as a goddamned golden opportunity. You've got a potentially multi-billion dollar blockbuster commercial movie that can feature products from companies like Hasbro, Amazon, Google, MS, and others that have piles of money. Plus, you've got new product launches you can do under the safety of brand extension, so even if they don't do well, you're not out as much money as you would be if you tried to launch a completely new product with a name not tied to existing brands. The hype machine lives for shit like this, Jerry! I'm telling you, with minimal outlay on our part, we can go up to every tech company out there and say, "How would you like product placement in one of the largest movie franchises in history? Not only that, but all that stuff you're talking about with AI? What if we gave you access to the largest platform in history to promote all the amazing things you're going to be able to do with it?" They'll be paying us to keep their competitors out of the film! Or, even better, they'll pay us to portray their competitors as fucking Skynet! Goddamn! Somebody get me some lawyers so we can start drafting the documents! But after they get me some hookers and blow.

Oh, and the View-Master one, do you want an action movie or a Hallmark movie? Because I can give you both, real fucking easy. Action movie: The main character, could be a kid, could be an adult, stumbles upon a View-Master disc that belonged to their father who disappeared years ago. Kid doesn't know what it is, has a bit of an adventure finding out. Gets a View-Master, drops the disc in, and discovers that dad was a spy! The disc either has clues to help the kid find out what happened to dad, or sooper-sekret weapon plans. Depending upon test markets, we can go for a Tron: Legacy-like ending, or shit, hear me out now, if we wanted to really push the envelope with this kind of brand marketing, let's aim for high art here. The kid sees something horrific about his father (or other loved one) on the disc. Oh, shit, right? I mean, who wants to look at a picture and realize that their father was an axe murderer? Now, here's where it becomes art. They're, of course, traumatized by what they saw. What do you do? You have to find out who they killed and why, so that you can bring peace to their family. After all, you only found the disc because you were going through your father's things after his funeral and found that. But that means you have to go through all of his shit, find all of the discs, and look at everything on them. You're gonna get some trauma from that. So, you start trying to find where and when the pictures were taken. (You can do this using things like Google Earth, an organic seeming product placement opportunity.) You also start looking up old friends and relatives and asking them questions that might help you without revealing your reasons why.

As you're doing your digging, you notice that there's something odd about your family history. Things relatives just won't talk about, and weird gaps in like records you'd expect a family to have. Eventually, you find yourself at the scene of the gruesome murder, and you come to the inescapable conclusion that, yes, your father did murder someone in cold blood with an axe. Naturally, you wander around in a daze. How could the man that you knew as your father do something so awful to anyone? Sometime later, you make a discovery, one that makes you go back to those View-Master discs and look at them again. You weren't wrong about the murder. You were wrong about who your father was. You see, he had an identical twin, and that was who he brutally murdered so that he could take his place, after you were born! Through in some cigarettes, baguettes, and fancy coffee, and I think we've got a Palme d'or picture. Do we have the Weinstein name or does somebody else? Because we could pitch this to them as a bit of a rebranding opportunity, while not having to worry about anybody losing any skin in the game.

And I'm just some asshole in the middle of nowhere coming up with that shit. Imagine what people being paid to do it can do.

Oh, forgot the Hallmark one: Kid finds dad's old View-Master and discs and is able to use that to reconnect with old family and friends, or discover who they "truly are" at Christmas or some bullshit.

Fuck! Why can't some assgasket Kevin Bacon me into some pitch meetings?

SAG-AFTRA Is Making Preparations to Strike

I hope that studio execs see this and think, “If I’ve lost Santa Claus, I’ve lost middle America.”

Santa is going to be giving out so much corporate coal this year Joe Manchin is going to go bankrupt.

https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/

Find a different job.

Go daddy-spank 'em with a belt, tough guy.

how dare those who produce things expect to get paid for it!

Paid beyond the terms they were offered when they voluntarily acceptedthe job. The self-entitled always seem to leave that part out.

So ..., Gene Roddenberry's estate doesn't deserve any royalties for any new Star Trek?
Lucas doesn't deserve any royalties for new Star Wars?

have you any idea how absurd it is when you of all people refer to others as "entitled"?

you really need to find a new one, because that 's gotten as tired as it is hypocritical.

anyways, as usual, your partisanship is with the thieves and those who'd shirk their obligation to those who do the actual work.

Whelp, get ready for more crap television and movies for the next year or two.

Did they pay what they agreed to pay, yes or no?

Nobody deserves to be protected from market forces or evolving technology, and if you're not offering more value, you should expect none in return.

Entitled is exactly the correct term.

This is the AI thing. I'm sure they all gleefully signed contracts that surrender the rights to anything they write while on the payroll.

"The market" isn't mindless like weather.
It isn't random chance.
The table is rigged.
We can un-rig it.

You mean you can rig it to suit your false entitlement.

You're sure. But, you don't know.

I don't either. I doubt anyone on here knows. But, this is how corporations turn public perception - by making the public think someone is trying to get something for nothing - when it's usually the opposite.

no... because those agreements have yet to be made.

or are you talking about residuals? In which case again, no... they're seeking to escape an obligation to pay what was agreed upon.

as always, you side with the parasitic

here we go

now those who care can know... including "work for hire"

False entitlement implies legitimate entitlement.
Who's got the legitimate entitlement?
Labor, right?
No?
Huh.

So, it's all covered in the 2017 agreement on page 41 in combination with page 451. The writer gets credit for their work.

Ok, Karen.

WTF is that even supposed to mean?

You are entitled to the terms of an existing contract. You are NOT entitled to anything simply by virtue of you needing or wanting it.