Good news for screenwriters!

Per a recent WGA report, a decided increase in the number of writers who made money writing feature films in 2017.

John Gary is a working screenwriter living in Los Angeles. This year in March, one of John’s projects “Gawker vs. Thiel” was announced in the trades.

John is the originator of the term “The Hope Machine” which he describes this way:

The Hope Machine is that monolith in Hollywood that makes you think that your dreams are right around the corner.

Every year around this time, John (who is on Twitter: @johngary), tweets about the Writers Guild of America annual financial report, focusing on the employment numbers for writers. Here’s what John tweeted just the other day (reprinted by permission):

It has been relatively easy to take a pessimist view of the Hollywood movie business the last few years, particularly when compared to the TV side of things. With 500+ network, basic cable, pay cable, and streaming series this year, and Netflix spending on $12–13 billion on original programming in 2018 alone, it feels like we in the midst of the so-called Peak TV era.

Yet here we are with news that WGA members who derived income from writing feature films is on the increase. Oh, by the way, box office revenue in North America over the July 4th holiday weekend reached its highest level in 5 years.

Maybe there’s Hope in the ol’ Hope Machine yet!

You can read my 2015 interview with John here.