Since the beginning of May, screenwriters in Hollywood have been on strike. The strike is a labor dispute between the Writers Guild of America, the WGA, and the Union of Film and Television Producers. The last time such a strike happened was during the Covid-19 pandemic, making it a pivotal event in television history.
But what is this strike about? Well, all writers want equal rights. So they created the Minimum Basic Agreement, which establishes minimum wages for TV and film writers. This already exists for broadcasters, but not for streaming writers. So streamers need to negotiate with a streaming company to get a decent income and they think it’s unfair, as opposed to broadcast television, which has a lot of rules. than. And we can understand them because streaming programs are as popular as broadcasts nowadays because more and more people are choosing to watch streaming platforms instead of TV. And unfortunately, this will affect a popular TV show on Amazon Prime, “Rings Of Power”.
“Rings of Power” season 2 in trouble
While “Dragon House” Season 2 announced that everything is ready to shoot and they don’t need the scriptwriter to start filming anymore because the rewrite has been done, which is more complicated for “Rings of Power” Season 2 because not only the script screenwriter left the set, but also presenters J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who decided not to be present for the remainder of the series, still had 19 days left. It also means that if there are any issues and footage doesn’t work during filming, they won’t be able to rewrite anything at the last moment. And this means that other people will have to make that decision, which isn’t the best thing to please the writers who have worked so hard on the show.
However, although they couldn’t rewrite anything at the last moment, they did leave some instructions behind so that filming could be completed in the best conditions even though they weren’t here. And when we heard that, it didn’t seem like they wanted to leave the set. And yes, simply because they have no other choice. According to the regulations of the Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, authors are not allowed to participate in production. So they can’t make creative decisions on a set and this of course includes the hosts who are at the heart of the writing process in the story room.
Set in the UK, filming will then conclude with the show’s directors and the notes they receive from the hosts before leaving the set. And it sounds tragic when you hear that, but fortunately, the two hosts knew this was going to happen.
The quality of “Rings of Power” Part 2 will not be affected
With that said, only three weeks will be filmed without a presenter, while filming for “Rings of Power” begins in October 2022 with all staff members. What’s more, while these three weeks are crucial, the people running the program know this will happen, so the notes they send to directors and employees are not written notes. at the last minute in panic when they heard the news. Instead, these are lengthy, precise letters written before the Writers’ strike was announced.
So obviously, this is good news for fans of the show as their absence won’t affect filming from what we hear since the scripts are already full of notes. . It was even said that their presence was optional during filming as everything was already written in their hands. Directors must be directors and make their artistic decisions along with notes from presenters. But while filming for this show will wrap up, the rest of the TV production won’t.
The strike is supposed to last until June 30 when major Hollywood production companies must sign an agreement for the Minimum Basic Agreement, meaning two months without any writers in the story room. to write TV shows. And it was a disaster because the production was very late because of Covid. So let’s hope the Writers Guild of America and the production companies come together to sign a new deal.
