Contract Deadline Looms

The New York Times reports that with just a month to go before screenwriting contracts in the USA expire the Writers Guild of America West and the Writers Guild of America East have been examining the option of striking in November, when some scripts will still be in development.

As many as three-quarters of those pictures -- including projects as prominent as "The Justice League of America" at Warner Brothers and "Another Night," the proposed sequel to "Night at the Museum," at 20th Century Fox -- appear not to have final scripts.

The question at hand is whether writers, in the event no deal is reached, can inflict maximum damage on their bargaining opponents by striking immediately rather than continuing to work and letting the studios add those films to their strike stockpile.

Negotiators for the guilds and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents studios and networks, are scheduled to meet again on Thursday. Guild negotiators could ask their 12,000 members for strike authorization in advance of the contract’s expiration. And they appear to be gathering information that would support a call for a walkout in November, rather than later, when the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America will also be in talks.