The ripple results of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike proceed. On Friday, August 8, the WGA introduced that Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar had been expelled from the union for writing the HBO restricted sequence, “The Sympathizer,” whereas their fellow writers have been picketing. This isn’t the primary self-discipline motion from the union in regard to the strike. Reportedly seven writers have been docked for violations.
The historic 148-day strike took up a number of months of 2023 — principally concurrently with the SAG-AFTRA strike — and resulted in a brand new contractural settlement between the writers and studios that elevated wages, set requirements for writers’ rooms, and included provisions for streaming residuals and framework for AI laws. It had a major impression on the Los Angeles economic system, in addition to the movie business at giant, as studio tons sat dormant and theaters, networks, and streamers felt shockwaves of their launch pipeline.
Chan-wook and McKellar’s “The Sympathizer” was launched in 2024 to stable opinions, notably for Robert Downey, Jr., who earned an Emmy nomination for his work. The sequence concerned a North Vietnamese mole hiding out in a South Vietnamese group in the USA. The story, primarily based on a novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, is controversial in Vietnam, the place the guide has by no means formally been revealed.
Chan-wook and McKellar have one other collaboration, the South Korean movie “No Different Selection,” premiering on the Venice Movie Competition in September.
Anthony Cipriano, in the meantime, was introduced to be suspended by Could 1, 2026, by the WGA for writing “The Final Breath.” Moreover, Cipriano was slapped with a lifetime censure and is forbidden from ever serving as a strike captain. Different publicly identified expulsions embrace “Virgin River” showrunner Roma Roth and “Weapons Up” author/director Edward Drake.
In accordance with a memo from the WGA, the selections have been made by the Strike Guidelines Compliance Committee. “They investigated dozens of allegations of violations and decided whether or not there was enough proof to ship instances on to the Board for additional motion,” the memo learn (through Selection). “All of those members volunteered their time for the fragile however essential activity of holding writers accountable to meet their obligations to their fellow members below the Strike Guidelines, Working Guidelines, and WGAW Structure.”
