'They don't have any show business in their blood'

Producer Richard Zanuck, who years ago ran 20th Century Fox, said in the days when he was boss, the studios deferred to Lew Wasserman to work things out with the unions:

"Swear to God, if Lew said, 'We can't go any further' or 'This is as much as we are going to give,' the unions knew he wasn't bluffing. So, he could wrap things up. There were prolonged strikes that he was involved in, but he could normally wrap things up. The management side doesn't seem to have found a replacement figure for him."

"In those days, there were just the studios. But today, there are the parents of the studios, and the parents aren't really show biz people. They are super-management. They don't have any show business in their blood. A lot of these major companies tolerate moviemaking and the creative process, but tolerate is about as much as they care for. For them, it doesn't make any sense, mathematically, but they are stuck with it in order to feed all the other things they are doing."

More news on the strike

-- Robert Welkos

Comments

[Chris Jackson]

This is a disaster movie of the Irwin Allen kind but the main nemesis is the EGO of Hollywood. In the “ego world” there are winners and losers and the collateral damage the working class in the world become the new homeless of downtown skid row.

Earlier today I got a call from my well placed friend at a studio who said the studios are planning an early Holiday because of profits they're making on the Writers Strike. So, the AMPTP will find a small excuse to end the talks until after the Holidays, That way the fourth quarter profits will show a huge increase in last year mainly due to Force Majeures clauses all over town.

This is a tactic only Dickens could conceive of … “Scrooge” them at Christmas time so that AMPTP can only have toys for their kids and as they watch all working class eat from the garbage cans on the street below.

I don't totally blame one side or the other I blame the EGO of Hollywood wherever it breaths.

Peter Chernin you know who you are. You had the chance as well as your counter parts to give us all a good Christmas but now we must eat the food SOVA gives us in the soup lines in West Los Angeles.

Merry Christmas Peter Cherin. Ba humbug!!!!
Happy Hanukkah Jeffery Zucker

Chris Jackson
Writer-actor

[josh pate]

Alan Ladd:

The WRITER'S are selfish? We create it all you idiot! It's a new era! Let's take it to the web and own it! Get VC capital! You want war? You got it!

[Dawn]

Dear Hollywood,

As a fan, I was at first very supportive of the writers and their demands. After all, it seemed only fair that they get their fair share of new market revenue. But as the weeks have dragged on and the rhetoric coming out of your so-called meetings has become more and more cliched, you all (the WGA and the AMPTP) are just starting to sound like a couple of kids fighting in a sandbox over a toy.
Are you people even considering all of the other people who are being affected by this strike? First, there are the actors and all of the “below the line” workers who are now left without a job because of your striking. Then there are the millions of fans, like me, who are very rapidly becoming disillusioned by the entire Hollywood industry. Have you even thought about the impact that this will have on your future endeavors? If this goes on much longer, any sympathy you ever had from the public will disappear and you will be faced with the prospect of having to regain the trust, and respect, of every television viewer and movie goer in this country. And that will not be an easy task. Viewers are quickly becoming fed up with hearing your childish bickering, and will even quicker tire of endless reruns, not to mention reality/unscripted shows dreamed up by braindead network execs desperate to fill an hour or more of television.
As a fan, I implore you (both the AMPTP and the WGA) to go back to the negotiating table and stay there until a deal can be reached that is satisfactory to everyone. Enough of this breaking off talks and making demands and issuing ultimatums. Just sit down and talk it out. There is a resolution to be found, if you will just stick with it and negotiate in good faith and with the determination to end this strike before irreparable harm is done to your industry. You all would do well to remember that times are different than the last time the WGA went on strike. Back then, there was no internet, and there were few alternatives for fans to turn to for entertainment. But today is different, and if you lose the fans interest, it will be harder to regain it. Consider that.

To the members of the DGA and SAG; I applaud you for supporting your peers in the WGA, but please, for the sake of your industry, and fans everywhere, use your influence to pressure both sides to sit down and not leave the table until they have reached an agreement. I hope that the right people will see this and that someone will have the good sense to come back to the table and start talking again.

My favorite show(Medium) is scheduled to return on January 7th, but with (reportedly) only nine episodes filmed, I have to wonder what will happen when its new episodes run out. This is disheartening to me, and I mean seriously disheartening, as that is one of the only shows on television that I watch faithfully. I am also concerned for all of the actors and below the line workers who are out of work now, and who may be left without a paycheck if the studios exercise this “force majeure” clause. Please, for the sake of everyone, WORK THIS OUT, and SOON.

Signed,

A fan

[David Swann]

The best way to solve the strike is to go after Yahoo, Google,
anyone Web site that puts the movie on the Web. Charge a fee
to anyone who orders a movie, and taking .20 to .40 cents of the
dollar and paying the writers,and directors what they should get.