The Poststrike Future of Hollywood
If the recent Hollywood strike were a movie, it would have a satisfying ending. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) got the important things they were asking for, namely better residuals for streaming shows and some protections from AI. Fran Drescher, an actor and the president of SAG-AFTRA, made a convincing case that this was a historic victory for labor and women’s empowerment, and recently said Meryl Streep was urging her to run for president of the United States.
The sequel to this saga, however, looks a lot darker. Like previous strikes, this one was instigated by a genuine reckoning for the industry. Every time there is a new technological innovation—TV sets, video cassettes, pay TV, digital downloads—Hollywood has an identity crisis. The latest tech foil was streaming. It was an exciting, generative, endlessly replicated innovation—or seemed that way until everyone started to slow down and look at the numbers. Disney, for example, has lost $10 billion on its streaming service since 2019. And many writers, actors, and studio heads felt it wasn’t working for them either. (Maybe it worked for viewers, on the nights they didn’t feel paralyzed by infinite choice.)
What were the hard truths revealed by the strike? And what will the next year of entertainment look like? In this episode of Radio Atlantic, I talk to Atlantic staff writers David Sims and Shirley Li, who cover the entertainment industry, about the coming realignment of Hollywood and what we should all expect. The term “river of junk” comes up, but so does the term “focus more on curation,” which should tell you that your evenings at home on the couch are at a critical juncture.
Listen to the conversation here:
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The following is a transcript of the episode:
Reporter 1: Hollywood studios and striking actors reached a deal late on Wednesday, all but ending one of the longest labor crises in the history of the entertainment industry.
Reporter 2: The union says the contract includes bonuses for streaming as well as AI protections.
Reporter 3: Everybody is ecstatic and excited. This is what the union leaders are describing as historic, as extraordinary.
Hanna Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic. Last week, the union representing Hollywood actors ended a months-long strike. By all accounts, it was a complete victory for the actors, just as it was for striking Hollywood writers weeks earlier.
Both SAG (that’s the Screen Actors Guild) and the WGA (Writers Guild of America) got a lot of what they were asking for, especially more pay from streaming and protections from AI.
[Music]
This was the first dual strike in Hollywood in over 60 years. And historically, these big strikes tend to come at moments of major change in the entertainment industry.
In the ’50s and ’60s, it was TV sets. In the ’80s, video cassettes and pay TV. And then
