According to the writers’ union, the most recent meeting between Hollywood’s striking screenwriters and senior officials from Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., and Netflix came to a deadlock.
The Writers Guild of America resumed talks with studios early this month after more than three months of silence since the strike began in May.
However, the offer from studios to increase wages, enhance working conditions, and somewhat reduce the usage of artificial intelligence was rejected in the meeting late on Tuesday, leaving negotiations in an impasse.
“We were met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was,” the WGA negotiating committee said in a statement about the talks.
Hollywood is losing millions of dollars every day as a result of the writers’ strike, which has been accompanied by an actors’ strike since mid-July. The writers’ strike has effectively shut down much of the film and television business.
Top CEOs including Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Donna Langley, chairperson of Universal, and David Zaslav from Warner Bros. were present at the meeting on Tuesday, but that wasn’t enough to seal the deal.
“We have come to the table with an offer that meets the priority concerns the writers have expressed,” said Carol Lombardini, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
According to Lombardini, the studios and streaming services made a fair offer that included a three-year, 13% rise in the minimum income for authors.
Additionally, they pledged to provide the WGA with currently-confidential data on the amount of streaming platform hours spent watching episodes.
Studios have stated that they will be more open about the streaming viewership statistics, but they have not made a firm proposal to change residual payments.
A major area of contention in discussions is the fact that as streaming has grown in popularity, residuals for series on such platforms have trailed behind those for traditional television.
The AI offer allowed writers to rewrite scripts that were initially written by AI while still receiving credit as the single author and the associated payment.
Studios, however, have said nothing about the idea of using old screenplays to teach AI, which is against WGA policy.
