NBCUniversal Suspends Deals With The Rock, Lorne Michaels, More

Several production companies have seen their deals with studios suspended in the face of the Hollywood strikes, and the latest are those of The Rock & Lorne Michaels. THR reports that NBCUniversal suspended the deals for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Seven Bucks as well as Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video, along with a number of other deals.

The move is the latest suspension of deals as the strikes drag on. Warner Bros. TV suspended the deals for its top producers including Greg Berlanti, J.J. Abrams, Bill Lawrence and Mindy Kaling. NBCUniversal has already suspended deals for Tina Fey, Sam Esmail and Mike Schur.

The report cites sources as saying that Universal Studio Group — which includes Universal Television, Universal Content Productions and Universal Pictures, and more — reached out to its remaining writing and producing partners on Monday and asked if they were comfortable with contributing non-writing services. Those parties who still have active scripted and unscripted projects who have agreed to continue working are not being effected by the suspensions, while those who either have completed production or weren’t willing to contribute non-writing services were suspended.

The report notes that Seth MacFarlane remains active at UCP in his work working on the Peacock reboot of Ted, and that Dick Wolf also remains active with unscripted programming that is in the works