(Tom) Hanks urges end to writers' strike

Source: Reuters

By Michael Davidson

LONDON - Actor Tom Hanks is keen to see the Oscar ceremony held as usual, and urged studios to return to the negotiating table to end a writers' strike that threatens to disrupt the climax of Hollywood's awards season.

The Golden Globe ceremony scheduled for Sunday has already been scrapped, and will be replaced by a news conference few stars are likely to attend. The People's Choice Awards were also scaled back and subsequently bombed in the television ratings.

Now all eyes are on the Academy Awards, the movie world's biggest night, which are due to take place on February 24.

"The show must go on, that is one of the tenets of everything," Hanks told Reuters in London.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSL1090411720080110

when the future dividents of revenue due to the writers is in play.

What will you tell writers when content goes completely digital...that they have no claim to the revenue from digital content sales?

That's very rich, coming from someone who makes millions in every movie. You won't be hurt, right Tom?

Losing some respect for Tom with this little news story

The Writers are asking for fair play.

Hanks said corporate bosses should remember that many people, from carpenters to caterers, were suffering as a result of the strike by about 10,500 Writers Guild of America members over their dispute with major film and TV studios.

"There are caterers and carpenters ... and electricians and gaffers," the 51-year-old said. "There are a lot of people out there associated with the industry, for whom the sooner this work stoppage is over the better.

"I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work."

The star of box office hits "Forrest Gump" and "The Da Vinci Code," and twice a best actor Oscar winner, added that a shift in the way screenwriters were rewarded for their work was needed in the Internet age.

"The delivery systems, the revenue streams, just the very presentation media is now going to be a brand new place," he said in a brief interview on Thursday.

I'd like to hear him advocate specifically for the writers, but he's pretty clearly leaning toward the WGA.

PriceWaterhouseCooper and Forester Research have already said that the market has peaked. iTunes isn't seeing the video sales they expected (their best selling movie title has only moved a paltry 5,000 copies), Netflix's online streaming service isn't heavily used, and the Walmart project closed up shop (important since WalMart is the largest movie retailer in the country). The problem, it turns out, is part technical and part DRM. The studios will not allow any streaming services that download the movie onto a viewers hard drive, because those can be copied and ripped. That leaves real-time streaming as the only option. The problem is that very, very, VERY few people have a connection fast enough to download a full-screen DVD quality movie in real time, and no home users have one fast enough for HD video. The telecom and cable companies are still trying to recoup their investments from the LAST broadband rollout, so there aren't even any new technologies coming any time soon capable of addressing this.

I have Netflix and have only wasted my time on their downloadable movie service ONCE. The picture quality was worse than SDTV, and the audio sounded terrible once I kicked on the surround sound and could really listen to it. The technology just isn't anywhere ready for prime time. I ended up ordering the movie the old fashioned way, and watched a much higher quality version when the DVD came in a couple days later.

I think both sides of this debate are going to end up looking pretty stupid if they drag this out and the market never materializes in any substantial way.

I would do my investment gambling on the side of the technology being there.

World Wide Web 2 will certainly have the high speed capability for it. and if all other indicators give any measure, what can be digitized, becomes the norm.

I had cassetets, then CDs, then DVDs...and now have a HUGE mp3 collection (all of my CDs have been ripped into it).

"The telecom and cable companies are still trying to recoup their investments from the LAST broadband rollout, so there aren't even any new technologies coming any time soon capable of addressing this."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/01/08/ces.comcast.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Comcast just announced DOCSIS 3.0 and its 160Mb/s throughput and it'll start to roll out by Q4... so the technology is already here. My home connection and it's 30Mb/s can easily handle standard DVD streaming and while it's not good enough to handle uncompressed 1080 HD, once compression technology improves, I don't see this being much of an issue.

The DRM problem and infighting among the studios about piracy concerns are much more of an obstacle than bandwidth infrastructure.

I think that in 10 years, everyone in the Western world will be online, and the technology is only going to get better. (If there's still a world at that point.)

Something that they should be according to federal law.

1) the studios should come back to negotiate
2) they should share revenue streams from new forms of media
3) that the writers and other workers were suffering

In fact, he didn't utter one word in defense of management and made some criticisms too.

You unfairly and innaccurately criticized Hanks. Looks like you saw the headline (which didn't quote him) and stopped reading.

They are far from the only people suffering from the strike - it's hurting a lot of the "little guys".

And, those other "little guys" are unlikely to see any gains from the settlement of the strike other than getting to go back to work.

The writers are still open to bargaining. It's the studios that refuse to share the percentage of profits that the writers help to create.

He's a liberal.

It's because this isn't all simply the fault of the corporations. The negotiations have been bungled and the issues have often been misrepresented. Have a read; they're short.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/wga-strike-how-things-ha_b_78190.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alec-baldwin/in-our-business-you-star_b_78348.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoff-rodkey/dumb-clucks-and-greedy-ba_b_78222.html

How much box office revenue will be lost if the Oscars don't go on?

who are trying to shaft the writers.
I fully support the writers strike. Don't give in till they beg for mercy! If the Oscars are scrapped, so be it!

who do you think has the greater staying power, the writers, or the studios will enough stuff in storage to re-run for years (maybe a decade, who knows?) at low cost? "Don't give in till they beg for mercy," sounds nice, but it's not too practical. The writers will have to go back to foodserving jobs, because the studios have vast amounts of resources, they can make a buck off of old stuff for a long time to come, if the payoff is breaking the writers' union.

The only problem is, there won't be anyone in Hollywood who can afford to eat out...

them?

General strikes eventually bring the corpo assholes down. Hang on WGA. They have already rocked the corpo fuckers, rock them a bit more and the WGA will prevail. After living in Sicily for 3 years I watched it happen in action. Fist pumping good shit.

to put public pressure on them is to avoid watching the recycled crap. Most of us here have something better to do (my lady and I volunteer at our local theatre group, and get to watch live performances) but the vast majority of Americans will go on watching the same old episodes of CSI they've been viewing. Maybe they think there will be a different outcome in the re-run...

If the writers' strike is not settled within the next few months, it will change television as we know it. If the movie writers go down the same path, we may see television AND movies cease to be a major part of the American culture, only the nostalgic will watch old entertainment, while new forms of entertainment arise. It will be an ugly thing for some, but others (myself included) won't really miss it.

so no problems here!

Tax cuts and loop holes for the rich and corporations were given to stimulate the economy. Start telling the studios to share the wealth.

1. Acting
2. Staying out of the way of propaganda pieces (Oswalds' Ghost series), thus allowing real research continue on JFK
3. Staying out of the way of the writers' strike, thus allowing labor and business to work it out

Hanks essentially supported the unions, asked management to come back and negotiate, also implored management to share new revenue streams.

Hanks supported an end to the strike, but as a result of negotiations, he never stated that union capitulation as a solution to the strike.

So, go pound sand, CreekDog...

If you want to say he "essentially" supported the unions, say it. I see more evidence that he was interested in the academy awards show as "the show must go on".

Perhaps if the show did NOT go on, there would be "essentially" more support for the writers' union.

it does not show

:rofl:

you made it sound like he took management's side, which he did not.

Seems logical.

They could easily negotiate a deal to not stand in the way of writers receiving just rewards for their efforts. It wouldn't be a big deal to them at all.

But studios (just the same as GOPers) just want to win for the sake of winning alone.

So the strike goes on.

Tom Hanks is right. Studios, come on. Get those right wing sticks out of your butts.

"...urged studios to return to the negotiating table to end a writers' strike that threatens to disrupt the climax of Hollywood's awards season."

...

"There are caterers and carpenters ... and electricians and gaffers," the 51-year-old said. "There are a lot of people out there associated with the industry, for whom the sooner this work stoppage is over the better."

...

"I just hope that the big guys who make big decisions up high in their corporate boardrooms and what not get down to honest bargaining and everyone can get back to work."

Movies used to be a big deal, people would dress up to go out and see them. They were a social event and the stars' heroic and flawless images were very carefully controlled by studios. Today, most movies are a dime a dozen and tearing down celebrities is a national sport. Even the fashion is just constantly recycled from past Hollywood glory days. It's time for the entertainment industry to get the message and evolve.

pure and simple.

And so should you.

Wow, THAT is not a nice way to welcome someone's comment on DU!

This "sophomoric twit", as you labeled him, may in fact be presenting a small (albeit very small) truth to issue. Though I'm sure that issue is NOT "pure and simple"- it's more that that. You have to acknowledge the studios and actors win as part of this negotiation.

Anyone, including Tom Hanks can make their statement and be seen as taking the "high road" while hoping the WGA and the big studios "work it out". It's a win/win for the actors/studios, and this shit has been going on for some time. It's all worth talking about without getting nasty, now.

You may see some friction as stars pockets start to seem a little emptier to them.

Oh, nevermind... I just had to sneeze. I thought I was going to tear up for a second.

"Actor Tom Hanks is keen to see the Oscar ceremony held as usual, and urged studios to return to the negotiating table to end a writers' strike that threatens to disrupt the climax of Hollywood's awards season."

I suggest that "Hanks urges studios to negotiate" would have been a better title.

What the fuck is WRONG with this asswipe?

Get on board!

I mean, they're just reading out who gets the award.

All their mutual adulation is written? :rofl:

The show must go on is *the* tenet of everything. Funny how the truth comes out and is not recognized as such as it does. An actor could run the world and now even a cretin imitating an actor can do the same. The show indeed goes on.

Tom Hanks, like most actors is on the side of the writers.

He's placing the impetus on the studios, as he should.