As the WGA strike continues in what all sides believe will be a long-haul showdown, “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” producer Zack Stentz knows that the excitement and emotion of another day versus another month can There is a big difference between.
“At that point, they start wondering if they’re going to make rent or mortgage payments or if they’re going to have to move back in with their parents if they’re younger,” Stentz said.
The screenwriters of “X-Men: First Class” and “Thor” sat down for a chat with Therap. Among the issues discussed were the initial vibe among strike participants, how one of their early television successes may have been a victim of the last WGA strike in 2007, and how streamers and networks would benefit if they were “smart”. . enough to use them.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
were you on the line [on Tuesday] Absolutely?
I wasn’t because I was giving interviews all day. i was on i was on the line [Wednesday morning],
What was the feeling among the participants?
The vibe felt a lot like it was the first few days of the 2007 strike, which is the atmosphere of one big party. It has that Comic-Con vibe, where you’re finally seeing a coworker you worked with ages ago or only knew online, even if you live a few miles away.
What happens when the enthusiasm and participation wears off?
Only then grassroots organization matters. If you are a strike captain, you have to take out the soldiers. Only then does it become important when enthusiasm starts to wane as people realize that they are in this for the long haul. At that point, they start wondering if they’re going to have to make rent or mortgage payments or, if they’re younger, have to move back in with their parents.
Are there stories about how a writer got his big break only to be hit by a strike?
On the first day of the strike in 2007, I was in front of Warner Bros. The man who gave the most memorable speech was a budding sitcom writer who, after years in the trenches, had just gotten his first show on the air. And he was wondering aloud whether it was going to come back after the strike, was it the end of his career? He then admitted that yes, he was afraid of all those things, but he was there anyway because it was important. That show was “The Big Bang Theory.”
New CBS reveals that most of those who came back immediately survived. While most other new or first season network shows waited until the next regular season [like “Life” or “Pushing Daisies”] never regained its audience and was canceled after its second season.
I was working on “The Sarah Connor Chronicles” on Fox. When the strike ended in May 2008, they chose not to hold the staff back to try to finish the season briefly earlier in May. That was a huge mistake. From the first half of the nine episodes we were getting great ratings for that first season. We premiered our first season from January 2008 to May 2008, ending that brief first season with a cliffhanger.
The show did not return until September 2008. We lost like half our audience and those audiences never came back. I think if we could have come back with fresh episodes the show would have got much higher ratings. That was when people were still getting used to 22-episode seasons and viewers wanted new episodes of Now, Today, you get 10 episodes and then in a year or two there could be another 10 episodes.
This is part of my concern. Because of the new normal, there is going to be even less incentive to go back to work.
If streamers were smart, they’d promote a deluge of shows viewers may have heard about but never got to watch, like AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire.” NBC did this 30 years ago by promoting its popular dramas and sitcoms as “New for You”.
Everyone talks about relying on foreign material, and they will to some extent. What could be stopping Disney from airing “The Mandalorian” on ABC? I am old enough to remember the 1988 strike. He took old episodes of “Mission: Impossible” and re-shot them in Australia with Peter Graves and a new cast.
(After this interview was conducted, Paramount announced that the Paramount+ original series “Yellowstone” prequel series “1883” will air on the Paramount network this summer.)
I watched them as a young kid and initially had no idea the show was from the 1960s. Do you feel that the resolution of the last WGA strike was generally in your favor?
Getting the camel’s nose in the tent was incredibly important in terms of streaming. We had to at least ensure that our representation is the twinkle in the eye of some companies but now the biggest source of employment. If the strike got us then it was worth it.
And now AI is the twinkle in Hollywood’s eye that needs a nose in tentacles?
I go back and forth on AI. Is it going to wipe us all out? Or is it just a sophisticated auto-complete? I don’t think you’re ever going to find an AI that can write like Aaron Sorkin, Steve Zaillian or Shonda Rhimes. The danger is that in three to five years you might get an AI that’s good enough to write a crappy first draft that the marquee showrunner goes and modifies to their liking.
Streamers should note that the old favorites that everyone watches — “Criminal Minds,” “The New Girl,” “Friends” or “Grey’s Anatomy” — are old-school 20-episode network shows. Will there ever be a push to get it back again?
The New “Daredevil” Series On Disney+ Feels Like An Actual Season Of Television [with 18 episodes] instead of six to nine episodes. A show like Poker Face shouldn’t have 10 episodes in a season. It is underrated; That’s the amount of people who still want to hang out with the characters they love once a week for half a year. Plus, as we’ve seen with “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “The X-Files,” there’s nothing wrong with a “Monster of the Week” episode.
I jokingly wonder if we’re all trying too hard with these high-concept campuses. In the 1980s, you could have had a show that was about a smart detective who lived in an airport hangar with a monkey. My friends have been telling me that, during the strike, I really need to write that “spy with a monkey in an airport hangar” show.
