Deadline Strike Talk Podcast

A weekly podcast conversation with Hollywood producer Todd Garner and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Billy Ray.

Throughout the duration of the Writers Guild Strike, Deadline is running a weekly podcast called Strike Talk. Its co-hosts are Hollywood producer Todd Garner and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Billy Ray. The first two episodes, which you can listen to here and here, are excellent as they dig down deep into the issues confronting writers amidst the current state of the film and television business. Via Deadline:

Aside from being an Oscar-nominated writer, director and producer with credits ranging from Captain Phillips, The Hunger Games, Shattered Glass to Richard Jewell and The Comey Rule, Ray was the WGA’s co-chair on the negotiating committee in 2017. Garner is a former Disney exec-turned-producer who runs Broken Road Productions, and whose credits include Anger Management, 13 Going on 30, Paul Blart: Mall Cop and xXx. He also hosted the podcast The Producer’s Guide.

I reached out to Billy Ray and he agreed to respond to some questions I sent his way.

You were directly involved in Guild negotiations with the AMPTP in 2011, 2014, and 2017. When you look at those negotiations and what is transpiring in 2023, what are some of the significant differences between then and now?

MUCH more media support. And true support from fellow guilds and unions. They ALL know this is the frontline in a much larger struggle.

One of those differences is who the Guild is currently negotiating with. In the past, discussions were with the major studios and broadcast networks, so at some point there would be conversations with a Bob Iger or Peter Chernin to hammer out a deal. But now there’s Netflix, Amazon, and Apple who seem to have some different agenda items. How is that changing the dynamics of negotiations?

Profoundly. We’re not talking to movie people. In fact, we’re talking to people who want to put the movie people OUT OF BUSINESS. Big difference.

In the first episode of the Deadline Strike Talk, you talk about how this WGA strike is in essence an attempt to save the business from the people who own it. What do you mean by that?

The offer on the table from the AMPTP will make it impossible for writers to make a living, and will — in a few years — mean the end of the WGA as well as its Pension and Health Plans. When that happens, the industry implodes. And everyone in every other field goes down with it.

Could you put into perspective why the WGA strike extends beyond writers working in Hollywood, but the very nature of the relationship between corporations and workers across the board for countless types of jobs?

This struggle is about corporatization — and a desire to suppress costs (insignificant ones, by the way) at the cost of an entire profession. We’re not just fighting corporate greed here — I can live with corporate greed. We’re fighting extinction.

If corporations who own media companies are primarily about quarterly earnings and profitability, and don’t have the passion for cinematic storytelling like writers, actors, directors, and producers do, what hope do we, as writers, have to create any sort of meaningful communication with the other side? Are there any points both sides can agree on to facilitate an eventual agreement to end the strike?

Only the sustainability of the business itself. You have to speak to your opponents in a language they can understand.

Beyond all the talking points and negotiation issues, it seems to me the AMPTP is fevered about generative artificial intelligence (A.I.). Like they envision a future where for TV, they hire a showrunner and a couple of writers for a mini-room to break a series, then cut loose the writers, and stick the showrunner in a room with A.I. to pound out episode scripts. What is your take on A.I. and how important it is as a negotiating point for the Guild with the AMPTP?

To me, it is massive. We hold the line here, or the entire industry will suffer.

By all appearances, the WGA is winning the social media battle with clever picket signs, images of writers with families and dogs on the picket line, actors and directors making public proclamations in support of the writers, and so forth. Does it really matter if writers win that battle? Does social media pressure really impact the AMPTP?

We’ll see. CEO’s have to go home too.

What can non-writers and the general populace do to support the WGA strike?

Unsubscribe from Netflix, Apple, and Amazon until the strike is over.

Finally, what do you and co-host Todd Garner hope to accomplish with the Deadline Strike Talk podcast?

We want to do all we can to provide a larger context for this effort… which will ultimately give more writers more faith… and therefore hasten the end of the strike by bringing the AMPTP back to the table. This is such an unnecessary bloodbath. And why the AMPTP pushes this Guild in this way so consistently is a mystery to me.

Todd Garner and Billy Ray are two high-level figures in understanding what’s going on with this work stoppage. I strongly recommend you add Deadline Strike Talk to your podcast list and listen to it every week.

Apple

Spotify

Twitter: @Todd_Garner, @BillyRay5229, @DEADLINE