Negotiating a deal in Hollywood has never been easy, but it's gotten even tougher lately for non-A-list working scribes looking to get a gig off a pitch, script sale or rewrite. Discussions I've had recently with managers, producers, agents and writers for the most part confirm a continuing trend of studios refusing to meet writers' established fees, or "quotes."
"I think there's a movement now by the studios to nullify quotes," says one writer with projects at almost all the major studios, who requested anonymity so as not to publicly tip his hand about negotiating tactics. "So there's a real push by the agencies to keep that line."
No one I spoke with believes that the studios' more miserly stance is direct retaliation for the Writers Guild's recent 100-day strike, though indirectly the four-month work stoppage likely brought any wastefulness with script development into sharper relief for the majors. In that sense, the writers may have inadvertently undercut their own livelihoods.
But most see the current tone as merely a continuing trend attributable to the shifting economics of the business. It is causing studios like Disney and Universal (Fox is constitutionally curmudgeonly) to squeeze the salaries not just of writers, but of actors and directors too, though not as harshly.
With shrinking slates and an unresolved Screen Actors Guild contract negotiation making greenlighters gun-shy, there are fewer active projects looking for actors and directors, so the studios can afford to be more hard-line in their negotiations. (This instability in the film market is also one of the reasons so many actors, directors, writers and agents are currently playing musical chairs with the agencies.)
But the development process is the easiest area in which to pinch pennies (or pens), as one producer points out, because writers are the most vulnerable and at that stage the project is still just a "potential" movie, not an actual "go."
"They have the leverage, it's that simple," says one major agency rep, who asked for anonymity to avoid coloring ongoing client negotiations. "It's supply and demand. Right now, the supply is high, the demand is low."
All of which means that a bunch of imaginative creative artists are being forced to make highly pragmatic financial decisions -- and even back off their once-firm quotes.
