Hollywood Actors and Writers Imagine Hits for Screen: NPR

This year’s saga of historic double whammy in Hollywood is far from over. The Writers Guild of America has won a new contract after hitting major studios and streaming companies for about five months. Now the SAG-AFTRA performers await their happy ending.

How will this suspense end, and how might it play out on screen?

Will it be a reality TV show? Short, separate series episodes? Horror film? Historical photo titled Hot summer work or Two hits YYou Heyut?

The story of David and Goliath, a science fiction film, a romantic story…

“I think it’s a David and Goliath story,” WGA team captain Getica Lizardi told me. She is a real writer of the series Bridgerton. “The studios have all this power, especially now that they’ve gotten so big. We’re just a rounding error for them. You have Apple, Amazon, these giant companies, and then we’re just a bunch of us who . . . are just barely making a living.”

Television writer Valerie Woods offered another idea: “Someone might write a romance about the Writers Guild strike.” “Or someone might do science fiction.”

Woods joked about an alien abduction plot, but as far as rom-com plotlines go, some of the chosen plotlines actually involve the host’s one-on-one encounters, so the story may focus on the lone screenwriters:

“I would like to find love,” writer Hallie Boston told me during a “Strike up a Romance” event on the picket line outside Universal Studios.

“I’ve been single for four years,” said writer Augustus Schiff, who was also there. “So I think that would be a nice side effect of me being here.”

Or the story could follow the struggles of a writer for a hit TV show, such as Brittany Nichols of Abbott Elementary. “Sometimes you just get a stack of checks for seven cents,” she told me about getting measly leftovers.

… Casting is essential

The cast of this story could also include struggling actors:

“I’m living in my parents’ garage right now,” Briza Covarrubias said during a Latino sit-in outside Warner Bros. Studios.

“My wife and I are currently on food stamps. You know, sometimes it’s cheesecake for lunch, but it’s something,” Taylor Orci told me.

Other actors and writers I met on the picket lines suggested a variety of genres: a superhero movie “where the unexpected SAG sidekick shows up and now they’re the hero,” said writer Nicholas Geisler.

“An HBO political thriller about the absurd,” echoed writer María Elena Rodriguez.

“Or a musical,” Woods added. “I mean we had all the karaoke machines and flash sets.”

That’s right, on almost every picket line, the strikers were singing, dancing and playing music.

Heroes and villains, on site

Of course, a Hollywood film also needs its heroes and villains:

On the one hand, there were studio heads like Disney’s Bob Iger, who acted as president of the company. He angered strikers over the summer when he told CNBC that workers’ “level of expectations” were “not realistic.”

After Iger and other studio executives joined the negotiating tables with the unions, TV writer Steve Harper had a suggestion for how they might be selected — inspired by the show. Succession:

“I think for the movie, you get Brian Cox and you do an AI imitation of him, and you put him in different clothes,” he said with a laugh. “You just hear a little bit of it, and then you hear it in another voice. That’s all you need.”

Fran Drescher, on the other hand, could play herself, perhaps with a flashback to her starring role on the 1990s sitcom. governess. As the true president of SAG-AFTRA, she is Norma Rae The moment came when she rebuked the studios and streamers:

“How they are using poverty as an excuse, and that they are losing money left and right when they give hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs,” Drescher said while announcing the strike. “It’s disgusting. Shame on them.”

Or the story could be a mystery: who is behind A parody of AMPTP President Carole Lombardini’s social media account It has become required reading for those walking the picket lines.

The movie or show could include long, grainy shots of the fake Carol walking around the Sherman Oaks gallery, where AMPTP is headquartered. (The shopping center was previously the location of the 1982 film Fast times at Ridgemont High School.)

Another location idea for this story: the SAG-AFTRA offices, just steps from the still-simmering La Brea Tar Pits where paleontological research continues. So maybe the script includes a scene with the dinosaurs coming back to life?

How will it end?

Other writers and actors I’ve met tell me they view this story as a story of community, the story of a growing labor movement that connects Hollywood workers with janitors, nurses, teachers, hotel workers, and striking auto workers.

While no one has made a film about the summer of strikes yet, Lizardi points out that Hollywood insiders have so far been able to control the narrative of the strikes.

“I think people had this perception of us before, that we were all comfortable and wealthy. But we’re not,” she told me. “Now that the public knows that we’re facing the same struggles that everyone is facing, like how do I pay my bills? How do I, you know, get my kid into school? People are supporting us. We’re the heroes of this story.”

For now, the story remains interesting while SAG-AFTRA and the studios negotiate a deal.

“You know what it is? It’s a heist movie,” says actor Jason George, known for his work in TV series. Gray’s Anatomy And daytime soap sunset Beach. He is part of the union negotiating team. “You’re getting the team together. They’re figuring out how to get money from the big bosses, and that’s the part of the movie where they seem down, and you’re thinking, ‘Oh, no, how’s George Clooney going to get out of this?’

In fact, George Clooney could play a small role, along with Scarlett Johansson, Ben Affleck and other celebrities. In real life, they tried to be the hero, offering to help end the strike by paying more union dues.

But how will this story end?

“You discover that we planted the seeds earlier in the picture, doubled down on our efforts and became more determined than ever before,” George predicts. “We came out and won the day.”

After months of strikes and deal-making, who in Hollywood is going to greenlight and finance this picture? Stay tuned.