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December 21, 2007
Wrath
I'm not sure that I have made this point clearly...
The WGA will not shut down the Oscars.
There is a world of difference between fucking with a 100 “foreigners” with the collective journalistic weight of a sitcom sidekick’s blog and taking on 6000 of the town’s most powerful people.
Gil Cates is already perceived as an anti-WGA guy. But an organization that refused to delay their TV show by a week or two as America went to war five years ago is not going to let a bunch of writers (including the 400 that are in the AMPAS branch) get in their way. If the AMPAS does sit down with WGA, seeking a waiver, you can be sure that the subtext will be thicker and darker than any scene in There Will Be Blood. (Note: Don’t hold the sit down in a bowling alley.)
But besides the brutality that Academy leaders will bring to the table, consider this bigger issue… the AMPAS is more than 65% funded by this annual TV show. The money goes to fund film festivals, to educate, to preserve Hollywood’s legacy, to celebrate the art form, to other charitable efforts, and of course, to give out the Nicholls screenwriting fellowship
The TV show generates about a $30 million net towards The Academy’s annual revenues. Annual Academy administration costs and the upkeep of the library alone cost more than the total of the rest of the revenue coming into the organization. In other words, kill the show and AMPAS has to start firing people and/or cutting back on their most basic services.
The Academy is planning on breaking ground on a $200 million movie museum at Fountain and Vine in 2009… which could be threatened by a major shortfall this year.
And while The Oscars are no longer the cash creator for films that it once was – except for the Best Picture winner, almost exclusively in DVD sales – it is a reach out by the industry to the world, promoting the health of an industry that the WGA seeks to earn its keep from and more.
There will be discomfort if the WGA action shuts down The Golden Globes. But if the union tries to shut down Oscar, they will be messing with something more than money. WGA would really will be tapping into the mass ego of the industry. And however much some writers have convinced themselves that AMPTP is dealing from some angry, emotional place… however much there are mixed feelings in some non-union quarters about whether WGA is handling the strike well… however ambivalent some members are about the strike right now… however some might delude themselves into believing that the earnest support of some actors means that most staying away from The Globes would be about unity and not fear of being branded a scab… the WGA has not been subject to wrath before.
Maybe they don’t fear wrath.
But as the David Letterman talks falling through – as they absolutely had to – show, they probably do. These are not dumb people.
Posted by poland at December 21, 2007 07:17 PM
Comments
Goddamnit! This is what we do to actors who refuse to wax their back hair! Just wait'll we get through with you!
Posted by: mutinyco ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 21, 2007 08:46 PM
I don't think the Oscars fund the Nicholl. It costs around $35 to apply and something like 6,000 apply every year. The contest pays for itself.
Posted by: Zimmergirl at December 22, 2007 07:23 PM
Based on everything that's been happening, it's pretty clear that the WGA absolutely will be picketing the Oscars, along with the Golden Globes and the effectively-cancelled People's Choice Awards. This will likely mean that the Golden Globes will be cancelled, as there is no possibility of the strike being settled before them and a certainty that there would be very little of the star presence that the Globes need to justify the show.
The Academy Awards will still go on, no matter what. But they will not have the writers onboard, and most celebrities will refrain from appearing, as most people do not cross picket lines. This is a difference from what happened in the 1988 Academy Awards, which happened in the middle of the WGA strike of that time. I believe that you're right that there will be consequences for this action, but I don't think it will change the outcome for the awards ceremony. On the brighter side, we can safely say that the ceremony will come in at or under its scheduled time.
I'm not convinced of your countdown clock. It doesn't seem to take the DGA negotiations into account. Those talks will begin within the next two weeks, and once they do, any WGA negotiations will be frozen until the DGA talks are concluded. I estimate about 2 months to do this, given that both the AMPTP and the DGA have large laundry lists of issues to discuss, given the 2 million bucks of internet/new media research the DGA will discuss with the AMPTP, and given the extensive haggling that will then occur, likely based on Kenneth Ziffren's formula. By that timeline, a new DGA contract would not come out of the room until mid-March or so. We'll have to see whether the DGA contract pattern is acceptable to the other 2 guilds. Assuming that it is, the question at that time is whether the AMPTP talks with SAG or WGA next. With a March timetable, it's unfortunately more likely that the AMPTP will turn to SAG first, given that the 2007 TV season and the 2008 Pilot season will already be effectively over. And that doesn't mention the other collateral damage, including the Oscars. Assuming SAG has assembled its Negcomm by March, it will be another 2 months of talks with them before that contract is done. That takes us to late May or early June. I believe that this is when the WGA will wind up with the choice of taking the 6 items off the table and going with the established pattern or staying out even longer.
Posted by: Working AD at December 24, 2007 12:11 PM
If Alec Baldwin's article on Huffingtonpost.com is indicative of how prominent SAG members feel about the strike ("Get rid of Verrone" and it's a direct quote), I think people are overestimating the support from actors, at least from the big names. And that could change things a bit.
Posted by: frank delsa at December 25, 2007 06:56 AM
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