Writers on strike march with signs on the picket line on day four of the strike by the Writers Guild of America in front of Netflix in Hollywood, California on May 5, 2023.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
The Writers Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios on Sunday.
The truce came nearly five months after over 10,000 WGA members went on strike on May 2.
Writers were joined on the picket lines by 160,000 striking actors, freezing TV and film production.
The Writers Guild of America, or WGA, has reached a tentative deal with Hollywood studios to end a 146-day strike on Sunday.
“WGA has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers),” WGA spokesperson Bob Hopkinson wrote in an email to Insider, which also included the guild’s Sunday night email to members.
“This was made possible by the enduring solidarity of WGA members and extraordinary support of our union siblings who joined us on the picket lines for our 146 days,” the email read in part.
AMPTP released a brief joint statement with WGA on Sunday evening.
“The WGA and AMPTPT have reached a tentative agreement,” the statement said.
The agreement comes after the guild and the AMPTP — which represents major studios and streaming services, including Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, and Netflix — met for five consecutive days since Wednesday for bargaining.
A person familiar with the negotiations told CNN that AMPTP representatives sent their “best and final” offer on Saturday to the writers.
Over 10,000 WGA members started their strike on May 2. They were joined on the picket lines by over 160,000 union members of SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, on July 14. The actors’ union remain on strike as of Sunday.
The joint walkout marked the first time in more than 60 years that both guilds have organized a labor action against the studios, which hit the entertainment industry hard.
The last time writers and actors went on a joint work stoppage, the strike lasted 148 days. In 1988, the writers went on strike again for 154 days.
Late-night television shows have gone dark since May, while production has been halted for almost all films and TV series, including high-profile shows like the fifth and final season of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” and Marvel’s “Blade.”
The strike at times exposed bitter rifts between studio higher-ups and writers.
In July, Deadline reported that an anonymous studio executive said the game plan was to let the strike drag on for months “until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”
“In the worst possible PR move they could’ve done…they’ve decided to go nuclear,” Alex O’Keefe, a writer on the first season of FX’s “The Bear,” told Insider at the time.
Earlier this month, actor-turned-TV host Drew Barrymore was criticized when she defended her decision to resume the fourth season of “The Drew Barrymore Show” without her three unionized writers. Barrymore soon reversed her decision after the backlash.
Both writers and actors were striking over various issues, including better compensation and protection against artificial intelligence.
Demands from the two unions stemmed from issues brought about by the rise of streaming, including shorter TV seasons, as well as fewer and lower residual payments, Insider’s Reed Alexander and Alison Brower reported on September 5.
The Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC), an organization that was created at the beginning of the writers’ strike in May to support industry employees celebrated the news of the agreement.
“The sense of community we all found in this dark period has been inspiring and TUSC is fully committed to continuing our activism and fundraising in perpetuity. We look forward to supporting IATSE in their upcoming negotiations,” TUSC said in a statement to Insider.