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The Writers Guild of America has decided to strike. After negotiations fell apart with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers this week, the WGA met Thursday night at the Los Angeles Convention center, and the WGA negotiating committee announced a unanimous strike recommendation, reports Variety.

Final decisions are being made, but it's likely the strike will begin this coming Monday, November 4th. For the time being, writers have been instructed to return to work and wait for an update from strike captains. Variety notes that it's possible for negotiations to re-open over the weekend, but it's seen as highly doubtful.

A major issue leading to this strike continues to be DVD revenues. Under rules set during the 1980s during the VHS/rental era, WGA members receive four cents for every DVD sold of a project they wrote. The WGA is asking for the amount to be doubled to eight cents a copy for the writer, and offered a compromise that wasn't accepted - the compromise would have kept the four cent revenue for DVDs that had made less than a $1 million in sales, but double the amount going to the writer for titles once they pass $1 million. The studios and networks state that DVD revenues are needed to break even thanks to rising costs and that they can't afford the increase for the writers. An additional issue continues to be how to handle revenue and residuals from new media, such as online downloads of television series.

If the strike begins Monday, production will have to halt immediately on talk shows such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien and The Daily Show, which are written the day of production. On Thursday's Daily Show Jon Stewart noted to the audience that they would not be back next week if the strike begins.

Meanwhile series such as Heroes and Lost will likely continue filming for at least a couple of weeks, finishing production on the scripts they have written. However, there are rumblings that teamsters could also stop coming to work in a show of solidarity with the WGA. If that does occur, all production will likely have to be stopped, across the board. Regardless, most prime time series will likely have enough shows completed to air new episodes until January or February.

Eonline.com's Kristin Dos Santos related how she was at a dinner on Thursday night attended by Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof and Heroes executive producer Tim Kring and how their cell phones and BlackBerrys, along with everyone in the room, all simultaneously received the news "It's on" as the WGA made the strike announcement. In a piece earlier this week this week we discussed how a strike would impact many series. Dos Santos updates the situations facing Lindelof and Kring's shows, revealing that the Lost writers have completed scripts for 14 of the 16 episodes intended for this season. Most shows have far less of their would-be final output ready to film.

Heroes also is a bit luckier than most shows, in terms of being able at least have some sort of closure for now. This season was already intended to be split into two or three distinct storylines, and the first one -- "Generations" -- will finish up with an episode airing in early December. While more episodes will have been filmed beyond that, NBC might just choose to make the conclusion of "Generations" a pseudo-season finale, rather than begin the next storyline only to have it abruptly be put on hold thanks to the strike halting production
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i mean like shows like heroes will all have sudden finales. this would be particularly bad for LOST watchers. man we watched every season without knowing whats going on, however still knowing we will know something by the end. so we continue. now they will just give us some crap ending that wouldnt be particularly satisfying. oh well.

keep your fingers crossed!

Went back to my coffin @ 9:43 p.m.





Tricked Poisoned