After four days of negotiations, the Hollywood studio chiefs and Writers Guild negotiators will meet yet again on Sunday, the two sides said in a joint statement on Saturday night.
“The WGA and AMPTP met for bargaining on Saturday and will meet again on Sunday,” it read.
Just two hours earlier, the studios made what they said was their best and final offer to the Writers Guild. A tentative deal was expected Sunday on a new labor contract between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producer, but it was unclear if the renewed talks represented a new wrinkle.
The anticipated resolution would mean a potential ending to one of the two strikes that has shut down Hollywood through the summer and past Labor Day.
After 144 days on the picket lines, writers and studios had narrowed negotiations as of Saturday to two issues: artificial intelligence and the minimum staffing levels in writers’ rooms.
Talks resumed between the guild and AMPTP on Wednesday, a restart that was preceded by nearly a month of stalled negotiations and finger-pointing between the two sides as to who should make the next counterproposal. AMPTP’s first counterproposal sent to the guild on Aug. 11 was described by the guild in a memo to members as “not nothing, nor nearly enough.”
But escalating financial pressure on the studios from months of production shutdowns along with urging from showrunners concerned about the financial insecurity of their writers and crew members brought the two sides back to the table for several days of talks.
Four studio CEOs — Disney’s Bob Iger, NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav — have been present throughout the negotiations at the AMPTP’s Sherman Oaks headquarters.
Sharon Waxman, Mike Roe and other TheWrap staff contributed to this report.
For all of TheWrap’s WGA strike coverage, read here.
