Hollywood studios disclose their offer on day 113 of writers strike 

LOS ANGELES - In an apparent attempt to break a labour stalemate that has helped bring nearly all of Hollywood production to a standstill, the major entertainment studios took the unusual step on Tuesday night of publicly releasing details of their most recent proposal to the union that represents

11,500 striking television and movie writers.

The studios are confronting significant decisions about whether to push the release of big-budget films like “Dune: Part Two” into the next year and whether the network television lineup for the 2023 to 2024 season can be salvaged or reduced to reality shows and reruns.

Shortly before the release of the proposal, several chief executives at the major Hollywood companies, including David Zaslav of Warner Bros Discovery and Robert Iger of Disney, met with officials at the Writers Guild of America, the writers union, to discuss the latest proposal, according to a statement by the union’s negotiating committee.

By releasing the proposal, the companies are essentially going around the guild’s negotiating committee and appealing to rank-and-file members – betting that their proposal will look good enough for members to pressure their leaders to make a deal.

The writers union said the studios’ offer “failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place”.

The union described the public release of the companies’ proposal as a “bet that we will turn on each other”.

The writers have been on strike for 113 days. The studios and writers resumed negotiations Aug 11 for the first time since early May.

Since then, there has been optimism within the entertainment industry that the labour disputes might be on a path to resolution.

But the public disclosure of the proposal by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the studios, suggests negotiations may have again reached an impasse.

Hollywood has been effectively shut down since tens of thousands of Hollywood actors joined striking screenwriters on picket lines July 14.

The studios said their latest proposal offered the “highest wage increase” to writers in more than three decades, as well as an increase in residuals (a type of royalty) that has been a major point of contention.

The studios also said they had offered “landmark protections” against artificial intelligence and that they vowed to offer some degree of streaming viewership data to the guild, information that had previously been held under lock and key. NYTIMES