As reported by Deadline, the long-running tension between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which began in 2023, has finally been resolved with a tentative agreement. The new four-year contract, a year longer than the norm, will give a much-needed boost to their healthcare and pension plans.

A spokesperson for the AMPTP reported that it “has reached a tentative agreement with the WGA, we look forward to building on this progress as we continue working toward agreements that support long-term industry stability.” Instability is exactly what writers are dealing with amid industry contraction, as fewer and fewer projects are greenlit. As part of the deal, not only will studios start forking out more cash to secure writers’ healthcare plans, but it also addresses issues regarding streaming residuals and previously expected “unpaid” work like rewrites.

The agreement must still be presented to the Writers Guild for approval, which could take several weeks. With SAG-AFTRA and DGA both having contracts that expire in June, some industry insiders on r/FilmInudstryLA are worried that the new four-year model will be used as a blueprint for other contracts, forcing them into what’s called “pattern bargaining.”  With one Redditor going as far as to say the agreement has “broken our ability to unify our labor actions.” For some context, the three-year contract cycle has been in play since the 40’s and has given unions the ability to quickly adapt to changing landscapes within the industry.

The Authors Guild has also reported that historic protections for writers against AI copyright infringement were part of the deal. New guardrails will now be in place to keep studios from using writers to train Large Language Models, or LLM’s. AI training often takes lots of skilled writers doing very tedious work. The new contract will also aim to keep studios from using AI to create “slop” scripts, then hiring writers at a lower rate to clean it up, and add a human touch.