Hollywood’s Post Strike Funk
According to this article in Monday’s Variety (via TV Tattle) Hollywood, especially the TV industry is in a post writer’s strike funk. Part of it was to be expected, the usual spring pilot season was thrown into chaos by the three month plus long strike. As the article says:
On the TV side, dramatically fewer pilots are in production compared to most years, resulting in reduced employment for helmers and thesps already hit hard by the WGA strike.
The article goes on to point out that the slumping US economy is making Hollywood just as jittery as it’s making the rest of the country, but considering that Hollywood movies do especially well during economic recessions, I don’t see what they’re so worried about.
What I personally think is going is touched on later in the article:
“The studios are punishing writers for going out,” one partner at a major talent agency argued. “They want to take their pound of flesh, so they’re pushing back deals and not making new ones.”
Of course they are. Everybody saw that coming. It’s a buyer’s market. The buyers being the studios. They can play hard ball more easily now, so they’re going to.
All those Hollywood execs have their noses out of joint because they got handcuffed by people they consider to be way beneath them, namely writers.
But no need to panic. Hollywood won’t be able to resist spending money like water for long and the gravy train will return. When it does, everyone will do lunch and make nicey, nicey once again.