Lies, Whispers, Rumors: a Strike Struck
Lies, Whispers, Rumors: a Strike Struck
What a runaway tale about a top showrunner meeting with the WGA revealed about agents — and an industry's anguish
Since the last round of talks between the WGA and AMPTP on Aug. 22, the deafening silence that fell over Hollywood kicked the rumor mill into overdrive. “This is a function of this stage of the strike where there's a vacuum of information… coupled with a deep sense of distress and desperation to try and figure this thing out,” says Peter Kiefer, who, together with Elaine Low, unraveled the real story of a proposed meeting between showrunners Kenya Barris, Noah Hawley and WGA leadership — and the agent-led whisper campaign behind it. Also: Richard Rushfield calls both sides to task for squabbling over process and procedure: “The rest of the industry should not be asked… to give up a year of income over a fight over whose turn it is to present something.”
Transcript here.
Lies, Whispers, Rumors: a Strike Struck
Keyser isn't acting like the pope tho. He's been out on the lines. Anyone can talk to him, rank and file and showrunner's alike... and they do. They've said over and over that the doors have been open.
This may be moot now that they are (hopefully) talking next week. But the AMPTP talking point about the state of negotations willfully ignores (as did you) the August 22nd meeting where WGA leadership was summoned and told that they needed to accept the AMPTP's first counter or else they'd release it to the public, which the AMPTP did in an effort to circumvent the Negotiating Committee. Everybody wants this strike to be over, but it's clear from the series of events, the reason they haven't been talking the past month is because the AMPTP doesn't know what it wants to counter.