Hollywood studios and screenwriters resumed negotiations today, their union said, following progress that shows there is a will to end the strike that has paralyzed the sector for nearly five months.

The negotiators of the two sides “will meet again today”, the WGA clarified in a message yesterday, Friday, evening to the 11,500 members of the industry it represents.

“We will continue to work to secure an agreement worthy of the writers,” the union adds.

The studios and the WGA on Wednesday resumed talks on sharing streaming revenue and creating regulatory frameworks for the use of artificial intelligence, after nearly a month of complete silence. This new round of negotiations raises a lot of hopes among industry watchers as there have been signs of progress in their talks.

For three days, big names from Disney (Bob Iger), Netflix (Ted Sarandos), Warner Bros (David Zaslav) and NBCUniversal (Donna Langley) are all around the negotiating table, according to media outlets specializing in the sector of entertainment.

In another encouraging sign, the WGA and employers, represented by the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), released a joint statement Wednesday night announcing the extension of their talks.

The unusual move gives hope that a deal is imminent as it shows at least a narrowing of the gap between the two sides, after 144 days of strike action that brought the industry to a near standstill.

Actors have also been on strike since mid-July, paralyzing the vast majority of film and TV production in the US.

In early September, the Financial Times reported a study by the Milken Institute that estimated the cost of dual mobilization, which has been happening since 1960, at $5 billion for California’s economy.

The claims of screenwriters and actors are similar.

The sharing of revenue associated with streaming services is still the main cause of the war: they want to be able to earn more when one of their movies or series is successful on a platform instead of receiving a one-time payment, which is usually quite low, regardless of the popularity of the movie or series involved.

The two professions in the field are also calling for safeguards to be in place for the use of artificial intelligence: actors fear their image or voice will be cloned, while screenwriters fear artificial intelligence could be used to write scripts and get paid less , or that their scripts will be used in robot training.

Even if there is an agreement between the studios and the writers, the actors will continue their strike. Their union, SAG-AFTRA, has not been in talks with the employer since mid-July. However, according to industry media, reaching a compromise with the industry’s screenwriters would pave the way for the termination of the actors’ strike as well.