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The Writers Guild of America (WGA) has expelled two of its members, filmmaker Park Chan-wook and writer Don McKellar for violating its protocols during the writer’s strike in 2023. The WGA had already disciplined seven other writers for alleged violations, three of whom were unidentified until yesterday.
Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar were expelled for allegedly working on The Sympathizer, their HBO miniseries, during the strike. The duo had created the seven-episode series based on an eponymous novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen. The series starred Hoa Xuande and Robert Downey, Jr.
According to the Writers Guild, neither man appealed his expulsion. The WGA constitution explicitly states that “no suspended or expelled member may be readmitted to membership in the Guild except by action of the Board, which may assess a fine and/or other conditions before readmission.”
The 61-year-old Park is also known for his 2003 film Oldboy and his 2016 film The Handmaiden. His current feature, No Other Choice, will premiere later this month at the Venice Film Festival. McKellar, 62, is a Canadian actor and filmmaker who wrote, directed, and starred in Last Night in 1998. He shares a scrrenplay credit on No Other Choice with Park, Lee Kyoung-mi, and Lee Ja-hye.
In a related move, the WGA suspended Anthony Cipriano through May 1, 2026 for writing on the supernatural thriller The Last Breath. Cipriani was also banned for life from serving as a strike captain for the Guild.
In May, WGA members narrowly upheld the expulsions of Roma Roth, Edward Drake, and Julie Bush, while overturning a public censure of writer Tim Doyle, who was accused of engaging in conduct unbecoming of the guild for posting a joke that was deemed in bad taste on a private Facebook group.
According to a release from the WGA about these incidents, a committee investigated “dozens of allegations of violations and determined whether there was sufficient evidence to send cases on to the Board for further action.”
The statement continued: “All of these members volunteered their time for the delicate but necessary task of holding writers accountable to fulfill their obligations to their fellow members under the Strike Rules, Working Rules and WGA Constitution.”
The 25,000 members of the WGA were on strike from May 2 to September 27, 2023, and the 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA were on strike from July 14 to November 9 that year. As a result of their actions, production on both film and television productions ground to a halt.
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