Waiting for Left Coast

(Sorry. Obscure Clifford Odets reference in the subject heading.)

Anyway, looks like Hollywood writers are going on strike, perhaps as soon as next Monday. The issue? Residuals from home-video, specifically the largesse from the DVD boom that many writers feel they aren't seeing. Currently they're making about a nickel on each DVD sale. They want to bump it up to a dime. The studios are saying uh-uh. New WGA leadership is young and combative. So, strike. The L.A. Times ShowTracker blog has a punch-by-punch account of last nights's Writer's Guild meeting, plus a pretty good overview.

What it means is that you'll start seeing Leno and Letterman's late-night monologues go south pretty immediately; Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert may be forced into making hand-shadow puppets too. TV and film producers have been hoarding for quite some time now, stocking up on scripts and shooting films ahead of schedule (which partially explains the recent production flurry in our fair city). If the strike goes on for months -- and it may, since no one seems willing to concede anything at the moment -- an article in the UK Independent opines that "movies will keep coming out, but they will undoubtedly get lousier as time goes on."

Okay, but how will we be able to tell?