Nearly a week into the Writer’s Guild of America’s (WGA) strike to secure better compensation in the era of streaming, it was announced that TV overall deals between studios and writers would be suspended. According to Deadline, the latest casualty in this measure was between HBO and The Wire creator, David Simon. Simon announced the divorce on Twitter this afternoon.
Simon tweeted about the suspension of his overall deal from the Warner Bros. Discovery network along with a video of him joining the picket line with other WGA writers. Deadline reports similar measures were taken at NBCUniversal as well as Disney and CBS Studios, with varying language. NBC elected “suspended engagement” while the House of Mouse optioned “suspended services.” As part of this arrangement, compensation linked to the overall deals ended on May 2nd as the WGA officially enacted its strike.
According to Deadline, as the studios suspended these working relationships, they outlined that writers/producers – according to their contracts – were required to continue offering producing services. However, showrunners pushed back on this demand citing that “there is no non-writing aspect” to their profession.
According to Deadline, Simon has written and produced prestige series for HBO for the past 25 years. In addition to last year’s We Own This City, which focused on the real-life unraveling of a corrupt police drug task force in Baltimore, he had a hand in the New Orleans-centric Treme, the pornography period drama The Deuce, the Oscar Isaac (Dune, Marvel’s Moon Knight) political thriller Show Me A Hero, and the alt-history period limited series, The Plot Against America.
In addition to the end of mutually lucrative work relationships, several tentpole series have paused or finished production early. This includes the Emmy-winning comedy Hacks which was filming its third season; Showtime’s final season of Billions; Marvel Studios’ highly-anticipated Daredevil reboot series; and, Netflix’s fifth and final season of Stranger Things.