Jul 12, 2007 01:52 PM
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Hollywood, 3:37 PM
Tue Feb 9
56 posts in the last 24 hours
Abandoning the quaint saber-rattling that has marked the run-up to the official start of negotiations for a new contract with the Writers Guild on Monday, the studios have apparently decided to cast aside their clattering blades in favor of a new nuke-dangling strategy intended to let the greedy scribes know they're not afraid to flatten the entire town if that guarantees more reliable corporate profitability.
At a meeting held at the strike-shelter the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has constructed beneath a man-made volcano in Encino, Warner Bros'. Barry Meyer and CBS Corp despot Les Moonves announced to the world, "Those writers think we're fucking them now? How do you suppose they'll feel if we throw away the entire residuals system?" The LAT reports on what followed once their ear-splitting cackles of delight finally faded within the producers' Doomsday Chamber:
"This is the time to do it," said Warner Bros. Chief Executive Barry Meyer, one of three executives who spoke at an industry briefing at the Encino headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. "We feel that operating under terms, conditions and business models that were formulated half a century ago is just an outmoded way to look at things."But the proposal was immediately rebuffed by the union representing Hollywood's writers as an attempt to put off coming up with a fair formula to share money that will eventually flow in from digital distribution.
"The industry conglomerates declare windfall profits to Wall Street while pleading poverty to the talent community," said John F. Bowman, chairman of the Writers Guild of America's negotiating committee. "We don't need a study; we need a fair share for writers of the revenue our work generates." [...]
Under the residuals system, writers, actors and directors are compensated for the reuse of movies and TV shows. Meyer noted that residuals were developed at a time when studios more than offset their film costs at the box office, which hasn't been the case for nearly three decades.
Meyer advocated that studios pay residuals only after they've recouped their costs, an idea dismissed by Bowman.
"Our members can't rely on Hollywood accounting," he said.
Credit the WGA for ignoring the reflexive tightening of their hindquarters as painful memories of their last residual-related disappointment flooded back, recognizing the studios' insane posturing for what it is. Still, we hope that once the AMPTP again escalates their rhetoric by opening Monday's bargaining session by announcing, "You know what? We've done some soul-searching on this, and we've decided that we don't want to pay writers for anything, ever. Have fun on the breadline, assholes!," the Guild doesn't respond in panic by draping themselves over the emergency buggering-log they've brought along to the negotiations, mumbling agreement that "maybe this internet thing really is just a stupid, money-losing fad. Seems silly to fight over the pennies we might get paid for downloads, doesn't it?"
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