Action! Hollywood directors eye contract talks

By Carl DiOrio

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Hollywood directors could announce as soon as Thursday a start date for early contract talks with the studios, a move that potentially undercuts the industry's striking writers.

Directors Guild of America (DGA) president Michael Apted and negotiating committee chair Gil Cates have received the green light from the DGA board to start talks at any time. But union insiders say it's unlikely that actual bargaining sessions with the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP) will begin before January 1.

The prospect of imminent negotiations follows last Friday's dramatic breakdown in contract talks between the studios and the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which has been on strike since November 5. The DGA is under contract through June 30 but has a history of striking new deals about six months before the expiration of existing pacts.

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) also has a contract coming due on the same date, but the actors are considered highly unlikely to request negotiations with the AMPTP while the writers are on strike. SAG leadership has been closely aligned with the WGA since the writers launched their talks in July, but DGA brass has largely been silent on negotiating issues over the same period.

As with the WGA talks, new-media compensation is expected to be the central issue in the DGA's negotiations. Yet the DGA is expected to gain quicker traction on that issue in its talks, in part because it has accumulated detailed third-party research on the economic underpinnings of new-media enterprises.

WGA leaders claim they will hold out for their own set of contract demands, regardless of any deal the DGA might secure. But some observers claim there already are signs of cracks in the solidarity of WGA rank and file.

"They tried to split the membership from the leadership (and) it worked to a degree," a top TV writer/producer said Wednesday. "I think they want everyone to sit out over Christmas and make the town think twice about the cost of taking a strike, so that no one else will do it for a good long while."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter