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BMF Producer Suspended by Studio After Incident With Striking Writers

Matt Webb Mitovich
·1 min read

Ian Woolf, a producer on BMF, has been suspended by production studio Lionsgate after an altercation with Writers Guild members who were picketing outside the Starz drama’s production facility on Thursday afternoon in Atlanta.

“We take acts of intimidation and threats of violence seriously and investigate them thoroughly,” a Lionsgate spokesperson said in a statement to TVLine. ” As we continue to investigate, we have sent home the individual involved.”

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As detailed by Gabriel Alejandro Garza (The Flash) — a WGA strike captain — in a tweet, he and fellow WGA member Brian Egeston (House of Payne) were stationed on a public sidewalk, not impeding traffic, when an SUV pulling into the lot’s nearby driveway skidded to a stop, “angled directly at me and Brian” instead of the entrance to the parking area.

Garza alleges that Woolf, the driver of the SUV, “looked directly back at me as he hit the accelerator one more time, followed by the brakes, and skid even closer to us.”

After parking his vehicle, Woolf approached the writers, demanded to see their WGA cards and at first claimed, “I didn’t see you guys” — after which he allegedly admitted, twice, “I was trying to scare you guys,” Garza said.

Writer Tom Smuts was also on the scene at the time of the incident and alleged via a series of tweets that, hours later, Woolf had “desperately pleaded with the Teamsters of Local 728 to cross our picket lines, and they refused.”

The WGA said in a statement following the incident, “Workers should not be threatened with physical harm when exercising their right to publicly protest and picket against unfair wages and working conditions.”

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