The ripple effects of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike continue. On Friday, August 8, the WGA announced that Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar had been expelled from the union for writing the HBO limited series, “The Sympathizer,” while their fellow writers were picketing. This is not the first discipline action from the union in regard to the strike. Reportedly seven writers have been docked for violations.
The historic 148-day strike took up several months of 2023 — mostly simultaneously with the SAG-AFTRA strike — and resulted in a new contractural agreement between the writers and studios that increased wages, set standards for writers’ rooms, and included provisions for streaming residuals and framework for AI regulations. It had a significant impact on the Los Angeles economy, as well as the film industry at large, as studio lots sat dormant and theaters, networks, and streamers felt shockwaves in their release pipeline.
Chan-wook and McKellar’s “The Sympathizer” was released in 2024 to solid reviews, particularly for Robert Downey, Jr., who earned an Emmy nomination for his work. The series involved a North Vietnamese mole hiding out in a South Vietnamese community in the United States. The story, based on a novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, is controversial in Vietnam, where the book has never officially been published.
Chan-wook and McKellar have another collaboration, the South Korean film “No Other Choice,” premiering at the Venice Film Festival in September.
Anthony Cipriano, meanwhile, was announced to be suspended through May 1, 2026, by the WGA for writing “The Last Breath.” Additionally, Cipriano was slapped with a lifetime censure and is forbidden from ever serving as a strike captain. Other publicly known expulsions include “Virgin River” showrunner Roma Roth and “Guns Up” writer/director Edward Drake.
According to a memo from the WGA, the decisions have been made by the Strike Rules Compliance Committee. “They investigated dozens of allegations of violations and determined whether there was sufficient evidence to send cases on to the Board for further action,” the memo read (via Variety). “All of these members volunteered their time for the delicate but necessary task of holding writers accountable to fulfill their obligations to their fellow members under the Strike Rules, Working Rules, and WGAW Constitution.”
