As the Writers’ Guild of America enters its fourth month of strike, Warner Bros. TV has suspended its overall deals with Mindy Kaling, Greg Berlanti, Bill Lawrence, and several other producers amid the historic Hollywood double strike, according to media reports.
The news comes nearly four months after studios including Amazon, HBO, Warner Bros. TV, NBCUniversal, Disney, and CBS Studios began suspending deals at the onset of the WGA strike in May.
That round of suspensions was mostly limited to writers, as producers whose shows were in production could continue on amid the WGA strike before SAG-AFTRA members joined writers on the picket line in mid-July.
The suspension of the deals was unveiled by a leading online publication, which cites sources that revealed that the upper echelon of writers has been hit with suspension of their overall deals pretty early into the strike – Lorre, for example, who has been with Warner for decades, had his contract “quietly suspended” back in May.
The suspension of the overall deals for the six high-profile writers does not equal termination, though. Kaling, Lorre, Berlanti, Wells, Lawrence, and Abrams oversee the creation of several shows and Warner Bros. Television will probably sit back down with them to renegotiate terms after the strike is over.
A spokeswoman for Warner Bros. declined to comment on the issue.
Stay tuned to this space for more updates!
Sandhya Suri poses during a photocall for the film "Santosh" at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 21, 2024.