The Writer's Strike and Cinco

So, a writer's strike.

Meaning, I think, my friend Cinco Paul, whose Horton Hears a Who! is due out next spring.

I remember the last strike, nearly twenty years ago. I was addicted to Letterman then (no more), and the Oscars (same) and disruption of both was the most tangible effect on my life. Carson and Letterman went with re-runs for a few weeks, then both came back, wrote their own stuff for awhile (or so we were told), and waited matters out.

Anyway, the strike does raise a point, one that is touched on by an essay by Rob Long and published a few weeks ago in the LA Times. The whole thing is here, but the important passage is here:

In 1988, when the last WGA strike reached a settlement -- and in this context, the phrase "reached a settlement" refers to the moment that the guild membership, exhausted and broke after five months, whimpered its way to an unconditional surrender -- a few days later there appeared all over town, like crocuses poking through the snow, an awful lot of spec scripts.

The town was flooded with buddy comedies, cop dramas, blended-family sitcoms, erotic thrillers and cop-partnered-with-orangutan projects. So many, in fact, that it was clear that a lot of striking guild members, when not picketing on Lankershim or brooding about their ill-treatment, had been doing a good deal more than noodling around an idea.

Although they publicly claimed to have spent the five-month strike merely thinking about writing -- and the three days after it up in Big Sur, you know, just plowing through it, totally focused -- it was hard to deny that some guild members took the strike as an opportunity to hit reset on their careers. So among the foreclosures and the cancellations and the force majeur'ed contracts, there was, apparently, a bright side. Something to look forward to, I guess.

But that was back in 1988, before Starbucks and iPods and Wi-Fi. Back then, most writers wrote at home, so it was easy to sit in the backyard, away from prying eyes, and work on your serial killer spec in between strike meetings. Things are different now. These days, writers sit in public places all over town, earbuds in, laptops out. The strike is going to change all of that.

Okay, begs the question: how far-reaching is a writer's strike, exactly? Certainly those on salary stay home: no commuting to the studio, sitting around the table with Woody and the Simon brothers, sending out for Chinese. The on-site stuff is out.

Okay: what about scripts for hire? William Goldman wrote he never signed a contract to write a script for hire; instead, he and The Suit sat down, hammered out a fair price, shook hands, and months of agony later Goldman delivered his draft, then his second, then his third. And in a near half-century of writing in Hollywood, Goldman can count only one time he was completely screwed over: in the making of Memoirs of an Invisible Man, a vehicle for Chevy Chase when Chase was still hot, a Top-5 star in the midst of his last two moneymaking franchises (Fletch and Vacation). Goldman (his account) delivered what he thought was a Chevy Chase script, only to find that Chevy Chase all of a sudden didn't want to make a Chevy Chase movie; all of a sudden Chevy Chase wanted to be Max Von Sydow and make a movie about "the loneliness of invisibility."

Please stay seated for the rest of the story. The director attached to the project was Ivan Reitman, whose Stripes had made him a name and whose Ghostbusters had slotted him second as a license to print money, right behind King Spielberg. Reitman, no dummy, sided with Goldman, said he would straighten it out, and so he went to the money people and said, "Chevy is way off the reservation, doesn't know what he's doing, ruining the picture, and Chevy can't be budged. Goldman and I are in agreement. Him or us."

Reitman had his money on us. The studio went with him. And when Memoirs of an Invisible Man came out, starring Chevy Chase, it didn't last its first weekend before winning the hundred-yard dash to the video store.

I re-tell the story only to bring up one last anecdote, and a question.

The anecdote: After all was done, after three drafts had been turned in, after Goldman had been fired, he went to the studio to collect his money. Again, by his account, the Studio Guy said, No, we're not going to pay you.

Goldman: Come again?

Studio Guy: No, we're not going to pay you. We have a lot of lawyers. How many do you have?

Eventually Goldman was paid--not nearly what he was owed, he maintains, but paid.

The question: let's say you've hired yourself out. You will produce a script on X day for Y dollars. And now a strike. Do you stop working?

Finally, the big macaroni. Lord knows it may be a rule more honored in the breach, but:

Does a strike theoretically compel a SWG signatory to stop writing altogether?

Check out the Long passages above. Of course a striking writer will spend his evening hours tapping out a spec for CSI: Miami or the next Sting, or Diner, or Annie Hall. But is writing in and of itself prohibited, even in theory?

Update: An answer from the source, Cinco himself:

So here's how it works:

During the strike, no writer is allowed to do ANY WORK for a struck company. If you've made a deal for a screenplay with a studio, you don't write another word until the strike's over. It's a legal strike, which trumps your contractual obligation.

For instance, my situation with Horton Hears a Who. In the next couple of months they are going to need writing done. I can't help them. It's frustrating, because I want the movie to be the best it can be...but I can't do it. I shouldn't do it. One of the main reasons I'm on strike is because the studios don't pay any residuals to writers on animated features. You heard right. Zip. Horton is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars worldwide. But I will get no residuals. Is writing an animated feature different from writing a live action one? No. Except that it actually is a lot more work--I've been working on Horton for four years now. No live action movie in production demands that sort of time.

Now, as far as spec scripts go--there's nothing prohibiting you from writing one. And it's nearly impossible for a writer not to write. So I personally have no problem with people who do. As long as they're doing it completely on spec. Trouble is, the spec market isn't what it used to be...so very few of them will sell.

Anyway, that's the situation. Fight the Power!