Lionsgate Investigating BMF Producer for Intimidation Tactic Aimed at Writers on S

Update: The WGA has shared a statement with Variety regarding the incident. Please read below.

“Workers should not be threatened with physical harm when exercising their right to publicly protest and picket against unfair wages and working conditions. Anyone who harms or threatens to harm a member or supporter of the Writers Guild on a picket line should be held responsible for their actions. The WGA is working closely with members who were endangered during this incident to hold this individual accountable.”

“BMF” producer Ian Woolf is under investigation amid reports that he attempted to threaten and intimidate picketing writers in Georgia, where the third season of “BMF” is currently in production.

“As I marched with the WGA in a peaceful protest, similar to the giants who have walked the very streets where you almost committed manslaughter, you chose to—in your own words— ‘Tried to scare you.'” Egeston wrote on Twitter. “Mr. Woolf, this scare and intimidation tactic reeks of German Shepards, water hoses, bricks and burning flesh. It reeks of the worst kind of hate. A hate that continually divides us as a people.”

“Mr. Woolf, your actions purveyed a deep generational hate for us. And that, sir, is a travesty for which you must be held accountable. If not by your superiors and peers, then by the people of Atlanta because the South will have something to say about what you did today,” he continued.

WGA strike captain Gabriel Alejandro Garza joined the conversation, adding a note confirming the events. “Brian and I weren’t impeding traffic. We weren’t even standing on the public driveway that is the entrance to this production’s basecamp,” he wrote.

Gabriel Alejandro Garza here. I'm a WGA Strike Captain, and the other writer standing next to Brian when this happened. I joined Twitter jsut know to post this: pic.twitter.com/5UJ3Ddm0Tk

— GG (@GG2116921532691) June 9, 2023

“Immediately, I heard a vehicle skidding as it sped into the driveway, and turned to see an SUV coming to a stop — angled directly at me and Brian instead of angled to enter the parking lot,” Garza adds, saying that the incident, in which Woolf identified himself and admitted that he was trying to “scare” the writers, was recorded.

Variety reached out to both “BMF” showrunner Heather Zuhlke and the WGA. Neither party immediately responded to Variety’s request for comment.

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Martina Birk

Update: 2024-04-28

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