The WGA is officially on strike against Village Roadshow Entertainment Group after the production company stiffed multiple writers.
On Saturday, the union announced the stop work order, prohibiting members from business with The Matrix franchise and Mad Max Fury Road banner under Working Rule 8.
“It has come to the Guild’s attention that over the last few months Village Roadshow hasn’t paid writers on numerous projects. Village Roadshow owes writers compensation, interest, and benefit contributions but has refused to pay. As such, the Guild has determined that Village Roadshow is not reliable or financially responsible and requires the posting of a bond to protect writers. Village Roadshow has, to date, refused to do so,” WGA leadership announced in a memo. “As a result, Village Roadshow is on the WGA strike list until further notice.”
Signed by President Meredith Stiehm, Vice President Michele Mulroney and Secretary-Treasurer Betsy Thomas, the letter encouraged those currently employed or recently approached by Village Roadshow to speak with the WGA’s legal department.
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As seismic as that might seem, and the real pain some scribes are feeling this holiday season, it’s a temporary situation for Village Roadshow we hear as the label gets its house of cards in order to pay the people who’ve done the work already.
What’s wrong? We understand the problem is with Village Roadshow’s majority stakeholder, Vine Alternative Investments, the specialized asset manager of $1.3 billion investments, who we’re told is having cash problems. As such, Village Roadshow is currently fielding offers for a new majority stake holder in its company which counts a half billion-plus library of film and TV titles, many co-shared with Warner Bros. Village Roadshow, which has also been behind such TV series as College Bowl With Peyton Manning and the USA Network Nash Bridges movie with Don Johnson.
Vine is comprised of Jim Moore, Managing Partner, Chief Executive Officer.
Also not helping Village Roadshow is its continued arbitration with Warner Bros. over The Matrix Resurrections and the producer’s credit exclusion on several titles they share rights on. Village Roadshow has worked with Warner Bros on such movies as the Ocean’s series, Ready Player One, I Am Legend, among others. Village Roadshow sued Warners in February 2022 over the Burbank, CA lot’s decision to go theatrical day-and-date on streaming service Max with Matrix Resurrections which tanked at the box office with $37.6M domestic, $157.3M WW. Village Roadshow has historically funded 25% to 50% on a typical Warner Bros. production.
Back in October it was reported that the Steve Mosko led Village Roadshow cut eight staffers in business affairs, administration, as well as those in film and TV roles.
Signs that gray clouds were hovering over Vine were seen back in July when they offloaded a bulk of their non-Village Roadshow library to Shamrock Capital. That collection included more than 550 feature films and over 2,000 hours of TV shows and 450 songs. The acquisition brought Shamrock’s content-rights holdings to $2.4 billion spanning more than 1,000 films and 3,000 hours of TV, and in excess of 20,000 musical compositions.
Village Roadshow did not return request for comment.