With the Writers' Guild strike now underway, there's a lot of speculation about how this will effect ongoing TV shows, harking back to the 2007-'08 strike's impact on shows like Friday Night Lights and Heroes.
This time round, HBO insiders were quick to confirm that House of the Dragon will continue filming season 2 as planned. According to Variety, all the scripts are "finished," so HBO can go ahead with production while the writers are on strike.
However, this has already attracted pushback from screenwriters like The Wire creator David Simon, arguing that "finished scripts" is a misleading phrase. TV shows routinely require edits and rewrites throughout the production process, and while the WGA strike continues, no House of the Dragon writers can do any of that work—including showrunner Ryan Condal. He can still perform some producer duties, but any kind of writing or editing is strictly forbidden. This includes cutting dialogue, altering stage directions, or offering verbal advice on story details.
If House of the Dragon continues filming, there are only two plausible options: It goes ahead with zero help from professional writers, likely resulting in a low-quality product... or HBO quietly hires non-union labor.
The latter option would give HotD (and any potential scabs) a toxic reputation among WGA members—even if HBO recruits writers from the UK, where the show is being filmed. Many British screenwriters are already showing solidarity with the strike, acknowledging the overlap between the UK and US industries.
As with any strike action, the WGA's strategic goal is to disrupt the industry until bosses agree to negotiate. In recent months many screenwriters have spoken out about unsustainable working conditions, citing low pay, a lack of legal guidelines for AI-generated content, and the negative impact of "mini writers' rooms" that hire writers as temporary gig workers.
Another key issue is that streaming services don't offer residual payments; a crucial source of income in the old-school TV format, where writers and actors would be paid for re-runs. Even relatively high-profile writers are struggling financially, with The Bear writer Alex O'Keefe saying he "had a negative bank account" when he won a WGA award this year. His family and friends had to pay for the suit he wore to the awards ceremony.
Considering the amount of money that goes into TV production, outsiders often assume that screenwriters must be wealthy. But as we've learned in the lead-up to the WGA strike, even writing on an A-list show like Abbott Elementary or Yellowjackets is no guarantee of financial stability. Some of House of the Dragon's WGA members may well be in a similar position.
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