Currently, all eyes are on whether or not SAG-AFTRA will go on strike this week. But there is already another strike in Hollywood that is currently entering its 71st day and that involves the Writers Guild.

Today, via Variety, we learned that top executives from Disney, WB, and Netflix are desperately trying to get a deal done before the extended deadline. To the point where they are trying to bring in a federal mediator.

But where is that desperation with the Writers Guild? According to Deadline, there isn’t one. They say The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is planning to dig in and not have any more talks with the WGA until October. Deadline also says that sources around Hollywood confirm the strategy, that had been talked about even before the strike. To put it bluntly, the studios are attempting to “break the WGA”.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline.

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Seeing how Hollywood studios are dealing with each of the negotiations is very telling about how they feel about the writers and that in itself is a tragedy. Even if the 160,000-member SAG-AFTRA joins the WGA on the picket line, there would be a greater effort to get the actors back to the negotiating table soon.

Even if the actors did strike a deal, this wouldn’t mean productions would restart, but it could let actors and actresses promote films and series that are already set to be released this year. This would help their efforts in holding off WGA negotiations until later in the year. Meanwhile, networks are changing over to unscripted shows and buying up foreign content.

No doubt, these are dark days in the world of Entertainment.

Source: Deadline & Variety