The Final Day

Think of This as a Palate Cleanser Before the Recovery Begins

The following is the timeline of November 8th, the last day of the SAG Strike. There may be a few inaccuracies, but this is how I understand the events according to a well placed inside source.

Wednesday, November 8th - 12:00 Noon. Yesterday, there was still no deal for SAG and the AMPTP, even though it was well known that midnight of November 7th was the demarcation line. WB Stock went down 20% this morning on a bad earnings call, or 30% if you count the previous 6 months. Paramount has lost $60 Million, or $100 Million, if like myself you naturally inflate any loss numbers that come from the mouth of a studio head by 40%. Suddenly, or rather predictably, as of this morning a good amount of the immediate start projects are shifting to the beginning of 2024. Revenues with any real positive margins will not happen until March.

1:00pm. I won’t bother with the baffoonery that led us to this place. There’s plenty on both sides. But, the results remains the same; together they killed Hollywood. The 1pm hour finds the negotiating teams having a tug of war with the clothes they stripped off the body. SAG members can’t see it yet, but they have only managed to end up with a sock.

2:00pm. A mad rush of Celebrity stragglers tangles traffic with black Escalades for miles around Television City in an effort to get to the Picket lines before it’s all over. They run past the picketers alongside their moving Escalades, engage in smiling photo-ops, profess their solidarity and jump back in before any of the peasants can touch them. On the plus side, overall energy use in Los Angeles plummets as they were all out of their tanning beds at the same time.

3:00pm. Supposedly, the two sides are talking and making progress. After months of negotiating the only two things left on the official agenda are trading Avocado Toast recipes and debating if historically, The Monkees should be considered a real band or not.

4:00pm. Theres’s an old adage in the Film business, “When the boat is taking on water everyone bails.” both sides simultaneously realize that they epically misunderstood the quote, and have both been bailing water into the boat since early August.

4:20pm. The negotiators come to a major agreement: The Monkees can not be considered a real band because all the music was written by Neil Diamond and performed by studio musicians.

4:30pm. Becoming confused as to whether it is SAG or Netflix that is his real enemy, Bob Iger throws up his hands and declares war on Lithuania. He proceeds to conscript all of the Disneyland park characters into the private Disney Army and they ship out. Snow White was last seen in a camouflage ballgown and Kevlar Tiara.

4:35pm. The ghost of Samuel Goldwyn calls Duncan Crabtree Ireland and tells him, “if you don’t accept the deal by 5pm I’m coming to your house.”

4:37pm. SAG/AFTRA accepts deal, claims victory and states, “we weren’t afraid of the ghost of Samuel Goldwyn for one minute. But, the other minute was absolutely terrifying.”

5:05pm. The Ghost of Samuel Goldwyn shows up at Duncan Crabtree Ireland’s house due to a lack of communication from either the AMPTP or SAG offices on the status of the negotiations. Quick thinking by Shaggy and Scooby Doo reveal that it wasn’t a ghost at all, but Ted Sarandos dressed up as someone who actually gives a shit about Hollywood. He manages an elaborate escape and will undoubtedly show up in next summer’s episode to terrorize IATSE.

I do have it on good authority that this is exactly how it transpired, though once again, there may exist several inaccuracies in how events unfolded. But really, it’s all so bizarre, you couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.

Postscript: If you’d like to know more about why I beat up on Netflix a bit in this post, and how they actually are the real villain in all of the recent woes in Hollywood, with facts, graphs and all manner of official stuff, you can read about it here: “The Netflix Effect”