The striking writers and heads of the four big Hollywood studios have concluded a “marathon session” of negotiations, which lasted more than ten hours, without reaching a deal Thursday evening, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.
The person, who requested anonymity because they were not publicly authorized to discuss the matter, said that more progress was made during the negotiations Thursday, the second straight day of intense talks between the two sides, but a deal still has not been inked to end the historic Hollywood work stoppage.
In an email to members, the Writers Guild of America negotiating committee said the union and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will meet again on Friday.
“Your Negotiating Committee appreciates all the messages of solidarity and support we have received the last few days, and ask as many of you as possible to come out to the picket lines tomorrow,” the email said.
The AMPTP studio bosses — Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav, Disney chief Bob Iger, Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos, and NBCUniversal studio chairman Donna Langley — resumed negotiations on Wednesday with the WGA. After the meeting, both sides issued a rare joint statement noting their discussions would continue the following day.
The fact that the two sides — which at times have rebuked each other for comments to the media — issued a joint statement signaled a possible sign of progress.
Warner Bros. Discovery is CNN’s parent company.
The WGA went on strike May 2 with the work stoppage reaching its 143rd day on Thursday, putting it within two weeks of the longest strike in the union’s history, which lasted 154 days in 1988. Many productions had halted even before SAG-AFTRA joined the WGA on strike July 14.
Both sides have similar sets of demands, including better wages, residuals payments from streaming services for their work, and job protections against the use of artificial intelligence.
— CutC by bbc.com
