Why the Writers Strike and So Many Actors Picket Beside Them

"The future, Mr. Gittes. The Future." That memorable line penned by screenwriter Robert Towne in Chinatown, uttered by farseeing evil tycoon Noah Cross (John Huston), is what it's all about. As we've written here so often, a huge chunk of the entertainment business is migrating to online digital delivery. Everybody in showbiz knows this. Yet somehow, the film and television studio executives make the claim that they don't know this and don't know if they can make money in the digital future. Writers and actors know this is bunk, and that's why they're striking -- to get a sliver of this huge new market, just as they get a sliver of revenue when their work repeats on broadcast TV, and the former "new markets" of cable, VHS, DVD, etc.

Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times wrote an excellent column on the merit -- more precisely, the lack of merit -- of the executives' claims, here. He nicely sums up: If the studios really believe they can't share a sliver of profits with the people who create what they sell, they'll be the losers. If you don't believe in the future, you shouldn't be in show business.