Halloween is looking scarier than ever for Hollywood.
Studio executives and representatives of the Writers Guild of America abruptly ended talks Friday amid growing pessimism that they would be able to reach an agreement before the union's contract expires at month's end.
Although the two sides have agreed to meet again Tuesday, the lack of tangible progress in on-and-off-negotiations since July has deepened fears that writers will go on strike as early as this fall.
"There's no question there's a lot of anxiety, not just among writers but also among network and film executives," said Los Angeles entertainment attorney Daniel H. Black, partner at Greenberg Traurig. "Do you greenlight a movie? How long is the shooting going to be? Do we have to lay off employees? There are a lot of moving pieces here."
A strike could cause upheaval in the entertainment industry that drives much of Los Angeles' economy. Writers last struck in 1988 for 22 weeks and cost the industry an estimated $500 million.
With much at stake and a contract deadline looming, many in Hollywood had hoped that talks would begin in earnest this week. Instead, meetings on Thursday and Friday only yielded more acrimony, with studio executives accusing their guild counterparts of refusing to engage in serious discussions.
"This is the most frustrating and futile attempt at bargaining that anyone on the negotiating team has encountered," said J. Nicholas Counter III, the studios' chief negotiator and president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. "We are farther apart today than when we started and the only outcome we see is disaster engineered by the present leadership of the WGA."
Guild leaders say it is the producers, and not they, who have been unwilling to engage. Writers are seeking a larger share of DVD revenue; an extension of guild pay and benefits to reality TV programs; and pay for work distributed via the Internet.
Producers argue that online entertainment is too new to establish pay formulas now and want more flexibility to promote their shows online. Citing rising marketing and production costs, they are calling for revamping the decades-old system of residual payments -- fees talent receive beyond the initial showing of their shows or films. Studios propose paying residuals only after they've recouped their costs.
That's a deeply unpopular proposal among the union's nearly 12,000-plus members.
