Hiring freeze begins for Hollywood writers

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Hollywood studios have begun a hiring freeze on screenwriters in anticipation of a possible Writers Guild Association strike next month.

Executives at Warner Bros., Universal, Fox, Paramount and DreamWorks have said they're not interested in making deals with screenwriters until the WGA reaches some kind of agreement, Variety.com reported Wednesday.

The guild's contract is to expire Oct. 31.

Tuesday's talks between negotiators for the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers yielded no progress, Variety.com said.

"The WGA presented an untenable proposal to double the home-video residual using specious numbers, a revisionist view of the bargaining history and a complete disregard for the costs and deficits that producers must bear," said AMPTP President Nick Counter. "When challenged on the questionable figures, WGA West Executive Director David Young said he would get back to us to break down how they arrived at these conclusions."

However, WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman noted: "Under the current DVD formula, a writer receives 4 cents for every $15 DVD sold. Our reasonable proposal is to increase our share to 8 cents per DVD. This is far less than the cost of the box the DVD comes in."