The union representing striking Hollywood writers said today it had reached a "tentative deal" with the studios after a three-month walkout that has crippled television production and overshadowed the awards season.
"While this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success," the Writers Guild of America (WGA) said in a memo to members.
Members will meet in New York and Los Angeles later today to discuss specific terms, the ratification process and ending the strike, the union added.
Sources familiar with the talks said a breakthrough was reached last Friday on key issues of paying film and TV writers for work distributed over the internet, and the two sides have been busy since then fine-tuning contracts.
If reaction from union members today is positive, the governing boards of the WGA's East and West Coast branches could move quickly to endorse the pact and order the 10,500 striking writers back to work while the deal is submitted to them for ratification.
Board action to lift the strike, perhaps as early as Monday, would probably not come ubtil tomorrow and would likely follow a formal vote by the WGA's 19-member negotiating committee urging approval of the deal.
Meanwhile, Hollywood is chomping at the bit to get its writers back at their computer keyboards. TV studios and networks are waiting to jump-start production on some of the biggest prime-time dramas and comedies knocked off the air or into reruns by the strike, hoping to salvage what's left of the broadcast season.
Fresh episodes of such hits as CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Houseand The Officecould return to network schedules by early April if the strike were ended next week. In the cinemas, a back-to-work order would allow producers to resume production on several movies put on hold.
Among them, according to trade publication the Hollywood Reporter, are Steven Spielberg's political drama The Trials of the Chicago 7and superhero movies X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Justice League. The Reporteralso said agents, producers and studios are bracing for a flood of "spec" scripts, unsolicited screenplays pitched by writers to studios in hopes of making a deal.
The flurry of script purchases could be intense as studios look to replenish a pipeline of material that had run dry since the strike began on November 5th, and writers seek to take advantage of what one executive said "could turn into a feeding frenzy."