We’re really split on this, because on one hand we’ve pledged our undying loyalty to Clooney on multiple occasions. On the other hand, we’re pro-WGA and have been for years, simply because the writers always get screwed and the union is important.
But, it does look like they might have messed this one up.
First, think Fi-Core. When a WGA member goes “Fi-Core,” they drop a lot of their Union rights, but also pay about 1.9% less in dues. You can’t vote in any WGA elections. You get health and pension plans, but that’s basically all you are paying for. Going “Fi-Core” is irreversible, and a few writers jumped ship this way during the WGA strike so they could keep writing in good conscience.
It seems like George Clooney quietly went Fi-Core before the WGA Strike in a form of protest.
The film is Leatherheads and it’s years ago. Clooney has just finished Good Night and Good Luck and he is looking for something lighter to do, so he takes the 17-year old script for Leatherheads, written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly , to Italy with him in an attempt to “fix” it.
Clooney came back with a new script that he got green lit, then he took the reins and directed it. That’s when a WGA rule kicked in.
If the director or producer of a film is proposed for final credit, an automatic arbitration is triggered. This arbitration involves a 3 person panel of WGA writers who read multiple drafts of the script and judge who deserves the writing credit. By union guidelines, a director seeking a writer’s credit needs to have written 50% or more of the film.
The vote came down 2-1 that Clooney didn’t meet the qualifications for a writer’s credit, and George went Fi-Core in protest. He did this quietly and before the WGA strike. He didn’t want news to get out and the media to spin him as some sort of anti-WGA monster, because he’s Clooney, and Clooney rolls responsibly.
“When your own union doesn’t back what you’ve done, the only honorable thing to do is not participate,” said Clooney to Variety after stressing that he isn’t suggesting Brantley and Reilly should have been excluded.
Clooney’s partner in Smoke House Productions told the trades: “George liked ‘Leatherheads,’ but said it never felt quite right. He took it to Italy with him, and I remember when he called to say he thought he’d solved it. One thing that you clearly see, if you read the original, the subsequent drafts and then his draft, is that he wrote the majority of the film. When I got the call about the decision that he wasn’t getting credit, I was shocked. We both thought Duncan and Rick would get first position credit, which they deserved. But this wasn’t right.”
“He doesn’t take possessory credit because he believes this is a collaborative business and he’s not a guy who needs credit,” Heslov continued. “Financial core was his form of protest, but when he did it, he didn’t want it public. We’re both big union guys. Between us, we belong to 12 unions. I think they made the wrong decision, and he was within his rights to respond by going financial core.”
Since Leatherheads opens today, the story is slowly breaking.
Just go see the film and imagine that it says: Written By Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly and George Clooney.
