ReelzChannel cosponsored the annual breakfast for the PGA Awards nominees this morning, where PGA president Marshall Herskovitz (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai) spoke out about the strike. "Over the last few months this industry has basically been eating itself alive," Herskovitz said. "I--like everyone else in the Producer's Guild--have been asked a thousand times what is my position on the strike. And I wasn't allowed to say anything because I'm not in the leadership of the writers' guild and I'm not a member of the AMPTP," he continued."I finally decided...finally, you have to take a position."
And for Herskovitz, that position is suck it up and negotiate. "Neither the leadership of the writers' guild, nor the leadership of the AMPTP can say honestly that they've done eveyrthing they can to resolve this strike," he said. "They can say that they've done everything they can to support what's good for their organizations. But finally we as producers understand that you've got to think about the whole film."
Herskovitz went on to urge the WGA and the AMPTP to consider all the other industry people not directly participating in the strike who are suffering as a result--all the show and film staff who are losing their houses and their incomes--and to apply their energies to resolve their differences.
His words may in fact be more prescient than he knows, as there is chatter that the informal talks that have been going on between the WGA and the AMPTP for over a week now have been going well and a deal may be imminent.
Should it indeed be, we'll let you know!