Deadline’s Strike Talk Podcast Week 8: WGA Negotiating Committee Scribes Show Resolve After 50-Day Mark

As the Writers Guild-AMTPT standoff hits double digits, Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast host Billy Ray focuses on a topic as important as his masterful recent conversation with AI. Writers rooms are the pipelines of talent that turn rookies into showrunners, the ones that make billions for studios and networks with hit shows.

 is coming to an end.The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of the HBO series' cancellation on Thursday, two months after the fourth season concluded its six-episode run.Creator, showrunner, writer and star Robin Thede issued a statement about the move, which is being characterized as a mutual decision to end on a creative high note.«Thank you to all the immensely talented cast members, guest stars, writers, directors, editors and crew members who have made A Black Lady Sketch Show an Emmy-winning success,» Thede wrote. «I especially want to recognize the Black women and other women of color who excelled in every department at ABLSS.

There will be no fifth season for A Black Lady Sketch Show, Deadline has confirmed. HBO’s Emmy winning comedy series will end with its fourth season, which wrapped in May.

EXCLUSIVE: As talks between SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP continue this week, actors are getting a headstart on picket planning should negotiations end in a stalemate at midnight on July 12 and lead to a double strike.

Amanza Smith is finally back home.

Deadline’s Strike Talk podcast is now in its ninth week, coming at a critical day with the expiration of the SAG-AFTRA contract. Deadline has revealed a high likelihood that the union agrees to kick the can down the road and beyond the holidays, but the tension is growing after more than 1000 major actors signed a solidarity letter that they are serious and will go on strike. That development would put every part of Hollywood in a deep sleep, because there will be no one to make projects, or promote the ones that are done. The Emmys also are threatened.

A baby tragically passed away in Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital just weeks after his first birthday earlier this month.

Late-night comedy writers are facing “oblivion” if the Writers Guild loses its eight-week-old strike, according to late-night comedy writer and WGA negotiating committee member Greg Iwinski, a former writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Futurama!” The trailer has been released for Season 11 of the animated futuristic sitcom. After a decade, the series has defrosted for 10 new episodes which will be added to Hulu on July 24. Season 11 features “a whole new pandemic in town as the crew explores the future of vaccines, bitcoin, cancel culture, and streaming TV,” said the show’s official synopsis. New New York will feature the voices of John DiMaggio, Billy West, Katey Sagal, Tress MacNeille, Maurice LaMarche, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr and David Herman. “Futurama” was created by Matt Groening and is executive produced by Groening, Cohen, Ken Keeler and Claudia Katz.

NBC has canceled Magnum P.I. and the show starring Jay Hernandez and Perdita Weeks will end following Season 5 Part 2.

Minka Kelly and Dan Reynolds kicked off their weekend with a pampering session!

Prince Andrew was not welcomed at the annual Garter Day procession this year meaning he missed out on the historic event for the second year in a row.

Editor’s note: The interviews conducted in this podcast were recorded at Deadline’s Contenders TV event, prior to the WGA’s strike starting on May 2.

My 600-Lb. Life‘s Larry Myers Jr. died days after turning 49.

My 600lb Life star Larry Myers Jr. has sadly passed away just a few days after his birthday. Larry tragically lost his life on June 13, three days after he celebrating turning 49 on June 10.

Billy Ray is back for the sixth installment of Strike Talk, a podcast that began with the start of the Writers Guild standoff. Falling on the 50th day of the strike, this episode is groundbreaking, in a Stanley Kubrick 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL meets James Cameron’s The Terminator kind of way. As he will explain in the podcast, Ray was able to make it so that he could have a back and forth verbal conversation with the AI that is a major bone of contention for the WGA in its dispute with AMPTP signatories. While the voice of AI seems amiable enough, it makes clear that as its technology and learning abilities become more sophisticated, fears that it could be used to lessen the number of writers coming up in the creative ecosystem by the use of cost-effective technology is validated in technicolor. Below-the-liners, writers and actors and even studio heads are expendable. Ray, who wrote the classic ‘I am the captain now’ line in Captain Phillips, unveils a new and potentially scarier skipper here, one that might give studio chiefs pause to consider what they’re unleashing to save a few bucks. Click below to listen.

Editor’s note: The interviews conducted in this podcast were recorded at Deadline’s Contenders TV event, prior to the WGA strike starting on May 2.

British big-hitters Russell T. Davies, Jack Thorne and Dennis Kelly are preparing to stand with writers around the world today in support of striking scribes on a global day of solidarity and action.

Please note, the House of the Dragon screening and panel took place on March 7, 2023.

The heavens opened over Manchester on Sunday afternoon (June 11) as heavy rain lashed down and thunder rumbled after a 23 day dry spell.