Disney Entertainment TV has suspended a slew of overall and first-look deals with producers across its subsidiaries, including Billy Porter, Yara Shahidi and Gina Rodriguez, among others, TheWrap has learned.
Additional non-writing producers impacted by the suspensions include fellow “This Is Us” alum Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore, as well as “Rebel” executive producer Marc Webb, “The Bear” EP Hiro Murai and FX Productions’ Stacey Sher.
Despite the suspensions, Disney Entertainment TV plans to continue paying for the deals in order to provide salaries for assistants through the end of 2023, as well as cover salaries for development executives through the first week of October 2023, an individual with knowledge of the decision told TheWrap.
The entertainment giant becomes the latest company to make the move to suspend deals as the WGA strike stretches into its fourth month, with SAG-AFTRA members joining striking writers on the picket line in mid-July.
Last week, Warner Bros. TV similarly suspended several of its overall deals with producers, including Bill Lawrence, Mindy Kaling, Greg Berlanti, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, John Wells and Chuck Lorre.
Suspensions for producers come several months after entertainment companies including Amazon, HBO, Warner Bros. TV, NBCUniversal, Disney and CBS Studios began suspending deals with writers the onset on the WGA strike in May. At the time, producers whose shows were still in production were able to continue on while writers halted their work per strike guidelines. Now, with both WGA and SAG-AFTRA on the picket line, production on virtually every scripted series or movie has shut down, with the exception of projects that have received interim SAG-AFTRA agreements.
Deadline first reported the news.
More to come …
