LOS ANGELES — Could striking writers really shut down Hollywood’s biggest party?
The producer of the Academy Awards promised Tuesday that the show would go on, although some Oscar watchers said the result could be a disastrous telecast with celebrities forced to stumble through ad-libbed presentations of awards.
“Awards shows are the best chance that writers have to prove how valuable they are. Without a script, we may finally find out how vapid and empty these stars really are,” said Tom O’Neil, columnist for the entertainment- awards website . “The awards shows will have no choice but to go on with the show, but not the telecast.”
“That’s totally ridiculous,” responded Gil Cates, producer of the Oscar broadcast scheduled to air Feb. 24 on ABC. “There will absolutely be a (televised) show one way or another. There are awards to give out.”
The Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike for seven weeks, vowed Monday that it would not allow members to write for the Academy Awards show or next month’s Golden Globes, a warm-up to the Oscars.
With the Screen Actors Guild preparing for its own negotiations with producers next year and stars showing firm support for striking writers, the bigger question may be whether presenters — or even nominees — would show up for an awards show boycotted by writers.
“I hope the actors feel strongly enough in support for us that they would not break picket lines,” said Brett Baer, a writer for the Golden Globe-nominated show “30 Rock.” He said the union told him he was not allowed to come to the Globes ceremony. “If we could shut down the awards shows, that would be great.”
“Actors should definitely not cross picket lines,” guild member Steven Paul Leiva said Tuesday at a protest outside the producers alliance offices. “It’s unfortunate, because it’s a celebration of people’s talent, but it’s also promotional for the studios that are treating us unfairly.”
Producers fired back in a statement that the guild was hurting the “creative artists who deserve to be honored for their work over the last year.”
“In the category of worst supporting union, the nominee is the WGA,” the statement said.
The actors guild said it would decide on its position about awards shows after reaching out to its elected leadership and members who have been nominated for Golden Globes. For its own awards show, set for Jan. 27, five days after Oscar nominations come out, the actors guild has reached an interim agreement for a writers guild member to script the ceremony.
Writers guild members walked off the job over their cut of potential revenues from programming on the Internet and other new means of distribution.
On Monday, the guild released a letter rejecting a request from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes, for a waiver to allow striking writers to work on the show.
In a separate letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the guild denied a waiver that Oscar organizers had sought for use of movie clips and past awards shows during the ceremony, which would allow the academy to use such footage without paying residual fees to writers.
