Hollywood is still struggling through the ongoing writers’ strike, with major productions from all studios affected, but it appears there’s an interesting loophole when it comes to animated features. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently tearing up the box office and has made over $120 million domestically, which means it has it the third-best opening for any animated film ever, and the biggest release to date for Sony Pictures Animation.
However, writer Christopher Miller has revealed that animation feature writers aren’t covered by the Writers’ Guild of America and have their own specific union. Even more bizarrely, animation directors aren’t covered by any union at all:
The situation for animation directors seems especially unique, and appears to be because feature film animation directors have the power to hire and fire employees:
One consequence of this is that a lengthy writers’ strike may result in an animation boom, as studios can freely greenlight animated films without having to deal with the strict strike rules of the WGA. Given that many writers will work in both live-action and animation, some of them will also inevitably be in the WGA, and thus can’t work.
Separating live-action and animated features in this way feels archaic, especially because most modern blockbusters make so much use of CGI that they can theoretically be considered animated features with live-action elements. Either way, if you’re an animation writer or director with a passion project you want to be greenlit, now might be the time to pitch it to studios while dropping some strong hints that it could see them through a content drought.