{"id":78587,"date":"2025-08-13T02:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78587\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T02:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T02:06:08","slug":"park-chan-wook-responds-to-wga-expulsion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/78587\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Chan-wook Responds To WGA Expulsion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAfter being expelled from the Writers Guild of America Friday for allegedly violating strike rules, Park Chan-wook<\/a> and his writing partner Don McKellar<\/a> have pushed back on the union\u2019s characterization of their actions on The Sympathizer<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn official from Park\u2019s production company Moho Film told Korean outlets this week that the duo \u201ccompleted writing the entire script\u2026and began filming long before the WGA<\/a> strike began,\u201d adding that the HBO series was in post production by the time the WGA called pencils down.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEditing does not constitute writing, so it was permitted under WGA regulations,\u201d the official\u2019s statement, which has been verified by Deadline, says. \u201cWhile editing, the two received a proposal from HBO to change some of the settings. They held a brainstorming session to see if the new settings could be implemented based on the footage. However, they were aware that new script writing was not allowed during the strike, so they did not rewrite or revise any of the existing scripts for any scenes. The new writing took place after the strike ended.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPer Park and McKellar\u2019s team, the WGA launched the investigation into their potential strike violations in December. The findings were brought to a jury of fellow WGA members which \u201cdetermined that the violations were unintentional and stemmed from a misunderstanding of their roles during post-production, and recommended only issuing a confidential warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHowever, the WGA Board of Directors ultimately voted to expel both writers \u201cwithout specific explanation,\u201d contradicting the recommendation of the jury, the statement to Korean media claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tPark and McKellar have chosen not to appeal their expulsions due to the time-consuming nature of the process, which Park said would interfere with his other projects. Technically, while it\u2019s certainly a blow to the duo\u2019s stature in Hollywood, it is not a death knell on their careers, because the union can\u2019t legally bar non-members from working with signatories of its MBA. Instead, it does require non-members who work with a signatory under its contracts to pay a fee that offsets the cost of union representation on that project.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe pair are not the only high-profile creatives who are not members of the WGA, whether by force or by choice. Park and McKellar join a club that includes George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone and George Lucas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDirector Park has always had a deep respect for his fellow writers and creators, and has consistently maintained a spirit of solidarity with them, and will continue to do so in the future,\u201d the official added in their statement to Korean media. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe WGA has not responded to Deadline\u2019s requests for comment seeking clarity on Park and McKellar\u2019s expulsions \u2014 or the claims that the decision went against the jury\u2019s proposed slap on the wrist. This is not the first time that the Board would have bucked disciplinary recommendations for 2023 strike violators, though.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn April, Guild announced disciplinary action<\/a> against six members for alleged unauthorized work during the union\u2019s 2023 strike, as well as one additional member for an alleged violation of the Guild\u2019s constitution \u2014 three of whom appealed on the grounds that the Board disregarded the recommended punishments in favor of harsher action. In Friday\u2019s announcement to members, the WGA also said all three appeals were denied and the Board\u2019s decisions were upheld by the membership.<\/p>\n

\n\tPer the WGA, \u201cthere are no further strike related disciplines and all Article X proceedings arising from the 2023 strike have concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After being expelled from the Writers Guild of America Friday for allegedly violating strike rules, Park Chan-wook and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,50459,88,43399,50460,18220],"class_list":{"0":"post-78587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-don-mckellar","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-park-chan-wook","12":"tag-the-sympathizer","13":"tag-wga"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}