With members of the Writers Guild of America on strike, Veep and White House Plumbers showrunner David Mandel offered his take on the situation, and it’s not pretty. With a writing career that stretches decades, including a stint on Seinfeld, Mandel has a keen understanding of the entertainment industry, and he doesn’t like how many writers he’s seen struggling in recent years.
“I’m not talking about COVID. I’m talking the changes are not working,” Mandel said. “They are scrounging for jobs in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t know what else to say. It does not make sense.”
As Mandel sees it, the writers are being punished for bad decisions made by the networks, particularly the massive push towards streaming content.
Via The Wrap:
“They don’t value us. They don’t care. They worry about stock prices and debt sheets,” Mandel said. “And the irony is that their debt sheets and their stock prices are in the toilet because they’ve made business decisions like, ‘Hey, let’s get rid of the cable money and go all in on streaming.’ I did not tell them to do that. I don’t remember the writers getting consulted on that. So when these guys are at the bargaining table pleading poverty based on their own terrible decision-making — they’re never going to admit they messed up their own businesses. And now they’re trying to take it out on the writers.”
With the fight over paying writers a living wage in the era of streaming in full swing, Mandel doesn’t see an easy end to the strike.
“I have no good answer, except to say, I think it’s going to be long and bloody, and it’s going to suck.”
(Via The Wrap)
