Showrunner Tony Gilroy Ceases Producing Services on ‘Andor’
Tony Gilroy had previously stepped down from all writing duties, but is stepping away from the production entirely now too. The bad news? Production is not shutting down with him. Scripts have already been written but we all know they’re almost living, malleable things that get changed all the time. Greedy bastards, this is probably one of the few legitimate “fuck Disney” angles since the sell. Just shut the fucking production down. Goddammit they’ll ruin this. Hoping for the best, but I’m very, very skeptical now.
This might not be as bad as it seems. My understanding of the article is that Gilroy stopped writing because of the writer’s strike. He then stopped producing as well because another writer tried to shame him for scabbing (not participating in the strike), explaining that “there’s no way a writer/producer can ‘finish’ writing and begin solely producing”.
I don’t know enough about the Hollywood writing process, the industry dynamics of the production process, or the rules or social expectations for WGA strikes, to comment intelligently about any of this, but my understanding is that Gilroy is simply participating in the writer’s strike, not officially stepping down from producing Andor to move on to some other project. It seems the line between writing and producing is fuzzy, creating difficult boundary cases for the strike. But if it’s true the scripts are already completed, it seems there’s a reasonable chance the production process will carry on without straying too far from Gilroy’s intentions or vision.