But as most Americans' pay increases, if only to account for rising costs of living, film industry salaries sank almost 10% with most of this decline in the writing departments, according to the Writers Guild of America. In a recent article by Variety, WGA writers' salaries went down nearly 3% and the amount of WGA writers employed decreased by roughly 11%.
While these figures only refer to WGA works and writers, it's significant to note a decline in any of the Guilds, especially one devoted to writers as more and more films are relying on adapted screenplays instead of original ones. This summer's blockbuster films include remakes ("Arthur"), comic book adaptations ("Xmen" and "Captain America"), and sequels ("Transformers," "Hangover 2," "Pirates of the Caribbean 4"). Original screenplays are either not being optioned by WGA writers (Variety notes "four of the 10 Oscar-nommed screenplays this year -- "Another Year," "The King's Speech," "Toy Story 3" and "Winter's Bone" -- were ineligible for WGA Awards") or not being written enough.
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But original or not, Variety proves that writers are getting the short end of the stick. This is nothing new; writers' strikes are well-known in both television and film as their jobs are usually undervalued and under-payed. Film producers and studio execs need to value the work of creatives or see a parallel and equal decline in the work of writers as their salaries decrease. I for one am not looking forward to more 3D concert movies.