"It's pencil down until midnight on Halloween," says Oscar-winning writer-producer Akiva Goldsman. That's his current schedule as he tries to finish up his latest draft of "Angels and Demons," the sequel to "The Da Vinci Code," before the Writers Guild contract expires Oct. 31. "It's unavoidably intensely stressful, but it's the way of the world right now."
Just last week, guild members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if a new contract couldn't be worked out with the studios and networks. All over town, executives, agents, producers and writers are nervously girding for what might be the biggest labor confrontation in 20 years. Depending on how negotiations go, the strike could come as early as Nov. 1, although the guild could always choose to continue negotiating under the existing contract. Nevertheless, almost everyone in town is gripped by a sense of foreboding, as it remains unclear how the talks between the guild and the studios will pan out. "Everybody is living in the impending doom," Goldsman said.
While a writers strike would affect TV production almost immediately, given that most shows stockpile only a few scripts at a time, the movie business would have its own set of problems. Because of the complicated logistics and special effects of most event movies, it can take months of preparation to get a blockbuster ready to shoot, preferably with a finished script. Studios start their planning years ahead, staking out prime release dates on the calendar. Recently, the studios have all but stopped hiring writers to crack books or write new screenplays as they plow their resources into readying films that need to go immediately, say various agents and executives.
"People are freaking," said one top literary agent. "It's unknown territory. No one knows how this is going to work. Studios are trying to figure out how to do without writers, and everyone out there who writes for a living is trying to figure out how to keep making a living."
Both sides of the divide are busy parsing the recently issued WGA strike rules, which are geared to make it as difficult as possible to continue shooting films without writers. For instance, members would be barred from finessing dialogue to suit an actor, changing stage directions because a location got rained out, or even changing a beverage from Coke to vitamin water because the proper product clearance couldn't be secured.
