Inside the WGA: Even at $400K a Week, a Million Insecurities

Nov. 6, 2007 — -- For about 500 Writers Guild of America members at the top of the heap, life is very, very good.

Some of the so-called A-list writers make more than $5 million a year, $400,000 a week for a rewrite of a film in trouble, but for every Paul Haggis and for every Tina Fey there are thousands of writers you will never hear of. In fact, almost half of the West Coast members of the WGA are not working as writers in any given year, strike or no strike. Writing jobs are hard to get and even harder to keep.

Craig Mazin is one of the lucky ones. His screenplay credits include "Rocketman" and "Scary Movie 3 and 4." In fact he's directing his own screenplay — "Superhero!" — right now and work on his set continued Monday despite the strike. "Compared to other unions like the autoworkers we're very different. People make wildly different amounts of money in ours," he said.

Mazin, 36, has been on the WGA's board of directors and runs a Web site with fellow screenwriter Ted Elliott ("Pirates of the Caribbean") that has become the place on the Internet for screenwriters to vent on the issues. Artfulwriter.com is getting 5,000 visits a day.

The last writers strike in 1988 lasted 22 weeks and, according to Mazin, was a failed one for the WGA. He claims its wounds have taken decades to heal.

"We're a young membership. Over half of the writers in the Writers Guild now didn't walk the picket lines in '88." And he says this strike is all about their future. "We are fighting for security. We have no choice. You don't light yourself on fire unless you know if you don't, you're just going to continue to be pushed around and picked on."