Billy Ray and Todd Garner are back for Week 4 of the WGA standoff on Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast. Click to listen below.
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In this installment, our hosts discuss strike strategy with Bill Mechanic, the Oscar-nominated producer and chairman/CEO of Pandemonium who was on the studio side of the table in past labor negotiations as a top exec at Disney and then at Fox, which he ran from 1993-2000 during a time of prosperity for that studio.
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Among the topics Mechanic discusses is the question of whether the current crop of streaming and legacy studio bosses have a moral responsibility to make a labor deal that will continue to nurture the ecosystem of content generation or whether their job is simply to make as much money as possible and look for the shareholders. They also discuss whether the WGA should consider a divide-and-conquer strategy against AMPTP by granting waivers to certain content makers — the guild successfully used a similar strategy in its battle with agencies over packaging and affiliated production arms — and many other important notes.
RELATED: Check Out The First Three Editions Of Deadline’s Strike Talk Podcast Here
Strike Talk will run weekly until the labor stalemate is resolved, and Ray and Garner will add guests each episode.
For more episodes of Strike Talk, listen and subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
There is also another surprise within Strike Talk 4. Garner, who hatched the idea for the Strike Talk podcast in an attempt to lend facts, rational perspective and clarity to help move toward a settlement, discloses that he will be going away in a bit to produce a film. It is a commitment made 10 months ago, and he discusses why, even as he and Ray have been so supportive to the writers on the picket line, he has a job to do, with dire ramifications if he doesn’t show up.
If you have questions or ideas for topics and guests to be featured on the podcast, you can email them to striketalk@deadline.com.
