Producers United, the advocacy group dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights of “career producers” in film and television, has added some significant legal muscle to its bench.
Entertainment litigator Bonnie Eskenazi and leading labor and employment attorney Allyson L. Belovin will represent the group of 300 name producers – whose membership includes Oscar winner Jonathan Wang (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Barbara Broccoli, Jeremy Kleiner and Dede Gardner and Cathy Schulman.
Since launching three years ago, Producers United has set numerous campaigns to center the importance of the career producer, individuals responsible for identifying and developing content and guaranteeing safe, timely and on-budget production and delivery. As Variety explored at length in a cover story last year, this group of filmmakers have been marginalized in a post-streaming world of shrinking budgets. They’ve also watched their fees and credits raided by talent seeking producer titles (while doing no actual producing work).
While Producers United is not currently taking action to unionize, the organization hasn’t ruled it out. The addition of Eskenazi and Belovin to their team, however, is a clear indicator that the group is serious about policy changes at the major studios and finding a path to fair compensation.
