A Swiftly Tilting Industry - or, What Will OUR Paychecks Look Like?

The following was a response I posted to a very interesting article concerning the current climate and future of writers in Hollywood. You can find the article posted on The Artful Writer website at http://artfulwriter.com/?p=870
(There are 2 ways of looking at this: 1., things look pretty bleak, especially for someone like me just trying to break in to the studio system. Or 2., there are more opportunities than ever before out there for upstarts like myself to take their careers into their own hands, get their works produced and seen, and make money. These opportunities can be seen as stepping stones to studio work.)

At this point I'm a relative neophyte when it comes to understanding the rules and functions of the WGA, so this post may be moot. But I do understand the WGA ostensibly exists to protect writers and make sure we get fair deals. Regardless of where the fault lies, they don't seem to be doing this very effectively.

The business is changing fundamentally, we all know that. But buyers seem to be trying to deal with the change, in fact dictate the change, while the WGA sticks its head in the proverbial sand.
Sure, we just struck for better deals concerning new platforms, etc., but the WGA seems by and large to be fighting by the current rule book, while buyers are busy drafting an entirely new manifesto. So -- why don't we take initiative and create that new paradigm/business model before they do?

Instead of bargaining from our historic position of weakness, what's to stop US from leading the current paradigm change and start bargaining from a position of strength? After all, it is OUR content that fuels the industry, until we sell it to someone else and let THEM craft/dictate the terms of the deal.

As stated, I'm not well educated on the specific boundaries imposed on our dealmaking options by the WGA, but here's a "what if" question that I think could change the story in our favor (though I know it's a HUGE "what if"), or at least inspire some out-of-the-box dialogue in that direction:

In the spirit of writers negotiating from a position of strength, what if independent prodcos and talent reps pre-packaged projects with writers, directors and talent, then approached studios from the angle of "This is the package, these are everyone's quotes, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT" (don't stop reading, hear me out). The quote would be as sweet as we want it to be, we'd ask for what we think is "fair".
Oh yeah, part of the contract would be "the original writer stays on the pic unless the DIRECTOR or producer says otherwise - the studio has no say. They paid for a package designed a certain way, and our part of the bargain is we deliver exactly that".
So drastic script changes, studio notes and general outside meddling will be greatly minimized.

I'm well aware this sounds audacious and impracticable. Of course when given a simple "take it or leave it" option, they're going to leave it. But as we all know, great change is never easy and always comes at a steep price. So initially the price we pay will be lots of execs laughing us off the lot, not working and going (further) into debt while other projects are picked up and developed instead of ours. But so what - isn't that pretty much where things stand right now?

But what if ALL the key element top earners - writers, directors, stars, etc. - were to adopt this policy (being attached to a project at an unwavering price)?
Studios may refuse us for a while, but it seems to me that eventually, from not hiring top-tier talent in possession of top-tier material, b.o. receipts would inevitably start to drop.
B team talent just won't be up to the task of pulling off the spectacular successes A talents are capable of achieving, and once B listers ARE capable of it, they'll BE "A talent" and will want the same deals A talent is holding out for.

Basically, we will have effectively boxed the studios in to a certain way of doing business: spending much more $$ in production costs and everything taking even longer and being more complicated because they're now relegated to working with B talent or less, or they pay the quotes and abide by the rules set by top tier talent.

Though there'll be strong resistance at first, this type of business model can actually be a money SAVING proposition for studios, because instead of wasting all that pre-production time/money/resources, very little change will occur to the project because the creatives have already agreed upon and set the project parameters, which means minimal unforseen expenditures, and shorter production time as a whole.

While all the A talent is working outside of the studio system, some indie prodcos are bound to have great financial successes with A talent working in smaller films (talent would have to understand that until our "embargo" is pushed through, they'll simply have to work for less, which again, they're already being forced to do).

These b.o. successes will eventually force some studio somewhere to break the embargo for sheer economic reasons (once they've seen the stellar receipts from projects THEY passed on because of not wanting to accept our new dealmaking standard) and accept a package deal based on the terms we've set.

Again, because this is A list talent, they're more likely to deliver a commercial hit. Once a studio makes money off such a hit they will of course want to continue to do so. We've effectively started the ball rolling, and sooner or later the new business model WE'VE created could be the new standard way of doing business and packaging projects. We the creatives now dictate the terms of the deal, and if the studios want access to OUR content, they must come over to OUR house and play in OUR sandbox. AND pay for the privilege.

Again, I may just be uneducated on how this all works and it's a pie-in-the-sky idea. But it seems to me to be a far-fetched but workable strategy, dependent only on if A list talent would/could show some serious solidarity for a while. After all, solidarity will ultimately benefit us all, economically and creatively. Isn't that enough of a carrot?

Whether or not this is a feasible plan, I think we need to stop wondering what's going to happen and start deciding for ourselves how our new world is going to look, rather than have a bunch of ad execs and media congloms decide our future for us. What kind of a deal do you think we'll end up with if we let THEM decide how OUR deals are structured?

Regardless of what happens this paradigm shift is happening right now, and this seems to me to be the ideal moment for creatives as a whole to start dealing from a position of power, rather than weakness.