Sony To Writers: Sit Down, Shut Up! …And Work For Free
By fred | June 16, 2008
One of the new series on Fox is in trouble. Sit Down, Shut Up! is a new animated series, based on an Australian series, coming up on Fox next season. Or that was the plan, before 14 WGA writers, showrunner Mitch Hurwitz first in line, walked out.
Apparently the story goes as follows : Sony, co-producing the show with 20th Century Fox, had been telling the writers from day one that their contracts would be covered by the WGA, which made sense since all the Fox TV animated shows now being broadcast on that network are covered under the WGA contract. Naturally writers assumed their contracts would be over the jurisdiction of the WGA, something done in the past for a Sony-produced show (Dilbert) which was also confirmed to them by Sony execs repeatedly.
Only, turned out they were lying !! The show’s maker is Sony Adelaide, and they have a deal with IATSE. And only recently did Sony finally admitted to writers that the show was to be covered by IATSE, leaving everyone pretty pissed, starring with showrunner Mitch Hurwitz (of Arrested Development fame) as well as The Simpsons writers-producers Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein.
“We naively thought it would be resolved, and we were all taken advantage of. We’re saddened we’ve been played like this. Because for two whole months through last week, Sony was still saying ‘Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. The show will be guild-covered.’ And then this week Sony said, ‘Sorry, the guild is off the table. You guys are going to be IATSE.’” explained one of the scribes to Nikki Finke.
Oh yeah, because for months now all writers were working on the show already, even though they didn’t get paid as no contracts have been signed so far. But writers always wanted to be covered by WGA and were told they would be, so they simply stopped working and walked out. “We can’t afford to keep going in to work on good faith.”
Plus, after going through a long, bitter and hard-fought strike, writers aren’t going to give it all up just like that. “All the writers are unanimous on this: none of us want to be the writers who roll back WGA coverage of animation. And Mitch [Hurwitz] was very firm that his show isn’t going to be the one that rolls back guild coverage of animation. It’s really come down to a battle over jurisdiction. It’s not about the money. It’s about the right to be represented by the Writers Guild.”
If things cannot be worked out, the show - featuring voice talent from Will Arnett, Maria Bamford, Will Forte, Tom Kenny, Nick Kroll, Cheri Oteri, Kenan Thompson and Henry Winkler - might be in jeopardy. And to be honest, it doesn’t look too good, as it’s been reported that writers received breach of contract letters a couple of days ago.
Funny thing is, they haven’t signed any contracts so far…
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Shows: Sit Down Shut Up
