The leaders of the powerful writers’ union Writers Guild of America (WGA) last night Tuesday approved the latest wage deal reached with the studios and demanded the return to work of their members starting today, after a strike that lasted nearly five months and paralyzed Hollywood.

The union’s board of directors “voted unanimously in favor of the agreement” on wages, announced the union via platform X. “The strike ends at 12:01 a.m. today, Los Angeles time.”

Specifically, the deal can still theoretically be rejected by the 11,500 screenwriters represented by the WGA in the US: it will be the subject of a vote, which will be held “between October 2 and 9,” the union announced.

But most industry experts believe the ratification of the deal, which includes “significant gains” in terms of pay as well as protections to frame the use of artificial intelligence, will be a formality.

Pending the completion of the process, the screenwriters can therefore return to work from today.

It is thus expected that it will be possible to resume work on numerous American series and films that were blocked in the early stages of their writing. Late night TV talk shows, whose presenters need written texts, are also expected to return to television within the next month.

The actors are still on strike

But even after the writers’ ratification of the end of their strike, Hollywood is still far from a return to normality. And that’s because the actors, represented by the SAG-AFTRA union, continue to strike.

A resolution of this labor dispute, which has been ongoing since mid-July, could take weeks. Because some of SAG-AFTRA’s lawsuits go further than the WGA’s.

Negotiations are therefore expected to be difficult. Especially since the studios know that any concessions they make to actors will serve as a benchmark for the industry’s technical professions, whose collective agreements are up for renewal next year.

Even after the actors return to work, it will certainly take months to get everyone back on set and cover the backlogs that have accumulated in Hollywood productions.

The content of the agreement

The WGA also released details of the deal it struck with the studios last Tuesday night, the exact contents of which were not known until after it was signed on Sunday.

The settlement shows the studios giving in to most of the union’s demands and appears to erase a victory for the writers.

It mainly includes a bonus when a series or movie becomes a hit on a streaming platform, that is, when “20% or more of (the platform’s) subscribers nationwide” see the production “within the first 20 days of its premiere.”

When it comes to artificial intelligence, the screenwriters also achieved guarantees that they will not be replaced by robots.

The agreement allows them to rework scripts, which were originally created by an artificial intelligence, and at the same time be considered the sole creators of those works and thus not be paid less.

A provision also provides that “exploitation of scripted material for the training of artificial intelligence is prohibited.” In other words, the bots won’t be able to be fed scripts from syndicated creators to improve their storytelling abilities—a point the studios have long been silent on.