I understand that the WGA has made mistakes in the five weeks since the strike began and even before that, but even a very close look at both side of the argument leads me to conclude that the AMPTP is nothing less than evil personified. I'm pretty sure the image on the left is a photograph of a typical AMPTP member. So what follows is my newest article/editorial, which doesn't try whatsoever to be impartial; the original link is here.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) walked out of negotiations with the Writer's Guild (WGA) this past Friday, then blamed the writers for trying to prolong the strike.

"We're disappointed to report that talks between the AMPTP and WGA have broken down yet again," the AMPTP said in a statement. "Quite frankly, we're puzzled and disheartened by an ongoing WGA negotiating strategy that seems designed to delay or derail talks rather than facilitate an end to this strike...While the WGA's organizers can clearly stage rallies, concerts and mock exorcisms, we have serious concerns about whether they're capable of reaching reasonable compromises that are in the best interests of our entire industry."

Hm. That sounds very pretty until you realize that the WGA has every reason to want to end the strike, and the AMPTP has many reasons not to. For one, they need to renegotiate their contract with the Director's Guild (DGA) soon. "[Studios] may be able to persuade the helmers to hammer out a contract that would create a formula for thorny issues such as payment for the Internet and other digital media," suggests Variety. "But it's far from certain whether the writers and actors guilds would adhere to any formula OK'd by the directors."

However, there's also a more devious reason at work: "force majeure" clauses legally allow the studios to terminate any contract they've made - let's say a three-picture deal with a filmmaker whose first film tanked - in the event of a circumstance beyond their control, i.e. the strike. The thing is, force majeure doesn't go into effect until six weeks into the strike - which will be a week from today. The money the studios recoup from terminating unproductive contracts could even balance out the money they've lost since the strike began.

For these reasons, the writers suspected that the most recent round of negotiations was just for show. ""What was so galling about Friday was that it made clear how disingenuous they were being," one WGA negotiator told Variety. "They never intended to negotiate. They told us if we took DVDs off the table we'd get a deal on new media. But they were lying."

That last bit about DVDs is referring to the original round of negotiations, when the WGA took their proposal of a new DVD residual deal off the table in order to secure fair deals that the AMPTP had promised for things such as streaming video and internet downloading.

The AMPTP, of course, reneged on that promise. And now they're blaming the WGA for not wanting to negotiate. That would be hilarious if it wasn't so catastrophic for the industry.