WGA Members Stage ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Picket as They Await News on Deal
With Hollywood anxiously awaiting news on a potential deal between the studios and the Writers Guild of America, writers are continuing to picket even through the weekend as dozens gathered at Television City to put pressure on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars.”
Over the past week, WGA has held picket lines outside of rehearsal spaces where the show’s competitors are practicing for the premiere episode currently set to air this Tuesday. Producers are present at the “DWTS” set at Television City on Sunday to make preparations for Tuesday’s premiere.
The guild’s efforts have yielded some success, as “Veep” star Matt Walsh announced earlier this week that he would not participate on the show until a deal with the Writers Guild was reached.
“I have been and will always stand with my union members of the WGA, SAG and DGA. Beyond our union artists, I am sensitive to the many people impacted by the strike and I hope for a speedy and fair resolution, and to one day work again with all the wonderful people I met at ‘DWTS’ who tolerated my dancing,” Walsh said in a statement.
At the headquarters of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in Sherman Oaks, talks between the WGA and studios are in the midst of their fifth consecutive day, with studios hoping to reach a deal today before the start of the Yom Kippur holiday at sundown.
Four major studio CEOs — Disney’s Bob Iger, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav and NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley — were present for the first three days of talks, with insiders saying that Saturday’s talks were largely between the legal teams of both sides as they sorted through the finer details and language of the contract.
Should a tentative agreement be reached either today or sometime this week after Yom Kippur, the WGA strike will end just shy of the record for the longest strike in Hollywood history, currently held by the 154-day writers’ strike in 1988.
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