As the WGA strike enters its fifth month, the continued solidarity among screenwriters remains a powerful example of how workers can fight for fair compensation together. That’s why it’s so unfortunate to see what’s happening on Twitter right now, where one writer is singlehandedly undermining the Guild’s entire cause: This WGA member tweeting out his absolutely horrible movie idea that a studio rejected has no idea how reasonable he’s making Hollywood execs look.
Yikes…the WGA’s higher ranks really ought to intervene here. If this man continues berating studio execs for passing on his terrible, terrible writing, it could set the labor organization’s progress back by decades.
Jeremy Tomlin, a 40-something screenwriter with 11.6k followers whose bio vaguely lists “Freeform” as a writing credit, has been posting the plot summary of a straight-up hack movie pitch that multiple studios apparently rejected from him, seemingly under the impression that it’s a damning example of how “studios stand in the way of good art” rather than an indictment of his own taste and writing abilities. The story Tomlin is attempting to use to garner support and sympathy for writers’ struggles is about how Hollywood executives passed on his pitch for a raunchy animated comedy that he describes as “Toy Story but with sex toys”—and he clearly has no idea that anyone outside the industry reading his tweets would understand perfectly well why a development executive would not want to pay him a large sum of money for that concept. Still, Tomlin is doggedly trying to tie his failed pitch to the guild’s motivations for striking, alleging that “this is what we’re fighting for: a Hollywood where writers are REWARDED for boldness, and not told ‘No’ by executives who put their bottom line over our art.”
Of course, we want greedy, anti-labor pigs like Bob Iger to pay up as much as anyone…but somehow, this guy has found a way to make their decision-making look sensible.
The bad look has only grown worse as Tomlin’s Twitter posting has gone on. Later in the thread, Tomlin revealed that one production company had in fact paid him $20,000 for an 10-page treatment for his self-described “sex-positive animated comedy boasting the satirical wit of Sausage Party,” which he seems to think is a paltry sum rather than a shocking overpayment. Not even the staunchest progressive could be blamed for respecting the executives who decided not to invest any further money in this self-aggrandizing weirdo who claims that his failure to get this awful idea sold “represents everything wrong in the industry.”
Wait…could this screenwriter be an AMPTP operative? It’s honestly a little suspect how every single tweet he posts manages to chip away further at all the goodwill Hollywood writers have going for them.
Unfortunately, if this man doesn’t stop asserting himself as a poster child for what the WGA’s fighting for, he’ll cause serious PR damage to the cause. The WGA needs all the support it can get to come out of AMPTP negotiations with streaming residuals and safeguards against A.I, so they might want to revoke this guy’s union card, permanently. Godspeed, WGA: we’re rooting for you and praying this talentless freak doesn’t hurt your chances of obtaining an equitable contract!
