CAA's Richard Lovett, Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane
The agreement allows the talent firm's agents to represent writers for the first time since April 2019.
The clash between the Writers Guild of America and the major talent agencies appears at a new turning point, as CAA has made a deal to represent scribes for the first time since April 2019.
"Today, we signed the same deal the WGA made with ICM several weeks ago. We delivered the signed agreement to the WGA, and we assume that it will be circulated to the appropriate members of the negotiating committee, as well as the membership, shortly," the agency said in a statement.
CAA adds: "There is one change we have provided that we think the WGA will be able to agree to. With regard to our investment in the affiliated production company, wiip, we are providing for a commercially practical time to come into compliance with the 20% ownership limitation contained in the agreement. We are unequivocally committed to achieving compliance."
The terms of the deal address packaging fees — a practice in which agents are paid directly by a studio for attaching talent to a writer's pitch — as well as affiliate production, in which agencies have gone into business as producers of content.
CAA financially backs the film and TV studio Wiip, which produced Apple TV+ series Dickinson and Facebook Watch's Queen America, among other projects. The guild has called such affiliate ownership a conflict of interest.
WME, whose parent company Endeavor owns production company Endeavor Content, is the lone major holdout on making a deal with writers.
The agreement allows CAA to once again represent writers for the first time since April 2019, when more than 7,000 scribes terminated their relationship with their agents after major agencies could not come to terms on a new deal. The same month last year, a legal war broke out as the Writers Guild sued WME, CAA, UTA and ICM and then WME, CAA and UTA retaliated in a countersuit.
The case is still winding its way through the courts, although ICM is out of the current litigation, having agreeing to terms with the union on Aug. 5. UTA, which struck a deal with writers on July 15 that will sunset the practice of packaging in two years but will keep its investment in affiliate productions, has dismissed its claims against the WGA.
The Writers Guild West, led by president David A. Goodman, has worked over the past year to sign up smaller and mid-size agencies for its "Code of Conduct," and has been successful in making franchise deals with Verve, Gersh, Paradigm, A3 Artists Agency, Buchwald and other boutique firms.
Like most of Hollywood, the Century City-based CAA, led by co-chairmen Richard Lovett, Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, has been hit by the film and TV production shutdown for several months beginning in mid-March. In April, the company disclosed that it would implement proportional pay cuts for all staff.
And on July 28, CAA disclosed that it would be laying off about 90 agents and executives and furloughing 275 assistants and staffers. In May, the S&P Global ratings agency downgraded the agency's credit from a "B+" to "B" due to the impact of the pandemic on the representation business. The ratings agency forecast that CAA's "credit metrics will be materially weaker than we previously expected in fiscal year 2020."
