LOS ANGELES — As movie and television writers deliberate whether to end a strike that is about to enter its fourth month, they will also have to grapple with a sober realization: the work world to which they return may be even less friendly than the one they left behind.
Over the weekend, Hollywood was swept by hope that the walkout by writers may soon end. The strike has brought most television production to a halt, forced the postponement of studio blockbusters and thrown tens of thousands of people out of work. Major stumbling blocks to a deal between producers and the striking writers, including nettlesome differences over compensation for digital media, were eliminated in informal talks.
Over the next week, leaders of the Writers Guild of America West and Writers Guild of America East will brief their governing groups, even as they begin drafting provisions that could become the backbone of a tentative deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
In an e-mailed bulletin on Sunday, the presidents of the two guilds told members they “do not yet have a contract,” and stressed the need for continued picketing.
But even as the sides were moving toward conciliation, many of those best-versed in the writers’ business were fretting that a more complicated, and perhaps less lucrative, future lies ahead. In interviews last week, lawyers and others — some of whom were granted anonymity to avoid derailing talks — cautioned that a post-strike world appeared likely to bring more imports from foreign television, diminished spending on expensive pilot episodes and even more reality programming.
And it could also mean that studios and networks, which had tightened budgets before the strike, will now take an even tougher stance in individual negotiations, and dole out fewer rich development deals than in the past.
“I’m worried that studios are basically preparing to extend that kind of regime,” said Linda Lichter, an entertainment lawyer whose clients have included prominent filmmakers like Guillermo Arriaga (“Babel”) and Marc Forster (“The Kite Runner”), speaking of what she saw as increasingly tight-fisted practices that preceded the strike. Ms. Lichter said she was concerned that companies, squeezed by a three-month disruption, would now “try to cut prices, try to use the economic climate to make people take what they’re offered.”
Some in Hollywood argue that the five-month writers’ strike in 1988 was followed by something of a dark age. The movie market was flooded with “spec scripts,” screenplays written without payment by aspiring writers in the hope that a studio would scoop it up at a premium. That system meant million-dollar paydays for lucky writers who made sales.
But it also shifted development risk away from the studios. Scores of screenplays, often by established writers who weren’t paid, languished on the shelf. The 1988 strike also brought with it a new severity in the kind of contractual terms that occupy industry lawyers. With surprising uniformity, studio lawyers put in place changes that angered writers: insisting on longer option periods for material, asserting the right to postpone contractual writing steps for a time, or extending a writer’s legal liability should a screenplay be thought to invade someone’s privacy.
“Only somewhat facetiously, I’ve said it’s taken us 20 years to climb back” from setbacks that followed the 1988 walkout, said David Colden, a lawyer whose clients have included Michael Chabon (“The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay”) and Cormac Wibberley (“National Treasure: Book of Secrets”).
This time, however, many changes are already on the table. Writers and their representatives, for instance, are warily eyeing company proclamations that for many could mean an end to the kind of arrangements that could pay a writer $8 million or more to develop television shows for a couple of years at network expense.
Many such deals with producer-writers (like Barbara Hall of “Joan of Arcadia” and Jon Robin Baitz of “Brothers & Sisters” on ABC) were ended weeks ago, as the companies invoked “force majeure” clauses as a result of the strike. Guild leaders have contended that they may take legal action on such deals.
Even if that happens, however, television producers are obviously flirting with ways to acquire or develop shows without all the overhead. In the last week, NBC bought 13 episodes of “The Listener,” a Canadian show about a psychic paramedic, while producers of “The Border,” about Canadian border agents, were negotiating with CBS and ABC, and ABC Family was reported to be in talks for “Sophie,” about a young talent agent.
In Las Vegas last Tuesday, Mr. Zucker told attendees at an industry convention that he planned to streamline his network’s development of new series, slashing the number of pilots to five or six from three times that many. Mr. Zucker’s wasted dollars, of course, have historically been a bonanza for not just writers, but the directors, actors and craftsmen who work on those unseen pilot episodes.
Michael Gendler, a lawyer whose clients have included David Chase (“The Sopranos”) and Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (“Transformers”), said the strongest writers may actually find an upside in such changes. They will be able to use the flexibility of digital media to create ventures of their own, rather than relying on the companies.
Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick did exactly that when they recently started a Web series, “Quarterlife,” then cut a deal to distribute it on NBC, making themselves employers rather than employees.
“That may make the studios less relevant,” noted Mr. Gendler, who said he was working on just such a deal now, though he declined to discuss details. “But it may make the guilds less relevant, too.”
