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The studios held out and eventually caved on pretty much every single demand. Not sure how that’s not a gnashing of teeth.

• taeric 3y ago
  The studios were clearly going to have to give in eventually. I won't really argue against that. I'm not entirely clear that this was a battle to be "won," though. It isn't like they've never left bargaining in the past thinking that they did well, only to find out that things changed later. Or that they just misunderstood stakes. To be clear, my main doubt in that post is that this is a battle that can lead to a winning war. I am not at all opposed to it happening. Indeed, I support those that were striking. I can't but feel that there is a higher up meta battle that will be more high stakes.
  • dagmx 3y ago
    I don’t think the studios see it your way though. There were quotes from executives where they wanted to essentially starve out the writers and come to more agreeable terms for the studios. Just last quarter they were bragging how the strikes were saving them money. I legitimately don’t think the studios wanted to agree till they saw their next quarter numbers. And I guess maybe I shouldn’t say “the studios”. They apparently had a couple holdouts in their corner which caused negotiations to take longer than the majority of the studios would have wanted
    • taeric 3y ago
      Could be, for sure. My gut is that most of the publicity and quotes I saw "from studios" were from basically the entry level/grunts of the studio world and combed to find the worst that could be found, quote wise. Note that I do think studios were more happy with the deal they had before the strike. I just don't think they are gnashing teeth at the agreement.
      • dagmx 3y ago
        Many of those quotes were attributed to high level executives, and being very involved in that world, I have no doubt in the veracity of those attributions. I therefore very much disagree with your gut feeling.
        • taeric 3y ago
          I'm vaguely interested in the quotes you mean. That said, I do still get the impression you are talking passed me. Do I think they would have rather kept more favorable terms for themselves? Almost certainly. Do I think they made silly jabs around this? Again, almost certainly. But I find the need for mustache twirling villains throughout the entire chain of the studio to be unlikely. (Note that this does not preclude that there could be some ridiculous personalities there.)
          • dagmx 3y ago
            https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/ https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studio...
            • taeric 3y ago
              My apologies, I missed this from some other conversations. I'm not seeing any named sources on these quotes? Such that this doesn't change my prior, yet? To be clear, I fully expect there are some crappy individuals in the studios. But, having worked in big organizations before, it is trivial to get stupid quotes from middle management that somehow thinks they know the landscape completely. Consider, the "top-tier" producer quoted with "late October, for sure" as what the intention was. And that was just the timeline for supposedly having talks... Clearly overstating their hand, there. Seriously, they don't have a single named source there. Not even one that has a credible connection to actual leadership. This reads far more like people that have an inflated sense of self worth talking than it does those that are actually involved. Again, I'm not claiming that they are happy that they are having to renegotiate. They certainly had better terms before. I just don't buy the "gnashing of teeth" narrative.