How the Hollywood writers strike could impact Metro Vancouver film and TV productions

Most movies and television series shot in Metro Vancouver are written in the United States. With the Writers Guild of America now on strike, local studios are concerned about how the walkout could impact productions here.

“We know lots are in prep mode right now and they saw this coming, so they pushed out their prep,” said Amy Lang, the president of North Shore and Mammoth Studios.

“Depending on how the strike goes, they may not get to a point where they are shooting, or they may get to shoot a few episodes and get to halt. So it really depends show by show.”

There are two productions currently preparing to shoot at North Shore Studios.

“They can continue to a certain point. They are not fully written, so if it goes longer than what our productions are anticipating, yeah they could come into a hiatus,” said Lang.

If productions are forced into hiatus, the local crew would be out of work.

“We estimate there’s about 40,000 people that work full time in the industry plus another 88,000 who are freelancers who indirectly work for the sector, so it’s a pretty important sector,” said Prem Gill, the CEO of Creative BC, who added it’s too early to tell what impact the strike will have on local production.

At the heart of the labour dispute? Revenue from streaming television and movies. Writers don’t think they’re getting their fair share.

“Given the complexity of the issues at play in this round of negotiations, I think the general sentiment was it would ultimately go to the strike,” said Lang. “The residuals calculation, what drove people to the platform in the first place, which show was it, they’re all trying to figure this out. So certainly the shift from linear network to streaming does make this more complicated.”

The last writers strike in 2007 lasted 100 days, which is a concern for the local film and TV industry.

“Three months, I think you would absolutely feel it,” said Lang. “What it really does is it pushes production down to the back half of the year and into 2024. So it would be unfortunate, and it just prolongs everybody getting back to work.”

With the industry just now recovering from COVID-19 shut downs, Gill is optimistic this labour dispute will be a short one.

“What we can hope for is things will get resolved for all parties fairly quickly, and move forward from there," Gill said.