QUILLBLOG

Hollywood’s writer unrest

Movie and television writers in Hollywood have been threatening to strike for some time now, but suddenly the threats have become a reality. According to The New York Times, the writers union broke off talks with the studios last night and will soon be tromping up and down the streets with picket signs aloft.

The walk-out threatens an instant jolt to television talk shows like Late Night With David Letterman and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, which rely on guild writers to churn out monologues and skits. And if the strike drags on, audiences could see the eventual shutdown of soap operas, TV series and movie productions, as they exhaust their bank of ready scripts.

Okay, so this doesn’t have much to do with the publishing industry, but writers gotta show solidarity with other writers, right? On the other hand, Hollywood scribes make about a trillion times more money than any novelist you could name, so maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to sympathize with the greedy bastards.