Corey Mandell, Screenwriter and Screenwriting Instructor: There was a lot of darkness and fear. It was a long strike and it didn’t look good in the beginning. Let’s give a little bit of a perspective. When there’s a war, the generals will look at the last war to see what worked and they’ll replicate that and usually that’s a good idea. Sometimes that’s how empires fall.
In 2008, which was the last serious work stoppage that the writers had the writer strike, at that point reality TV was starting to grow in popularity. The whole thing about a strike, and I’m sure most of you listening to know this, what happens is when there’s a strike, it will not resolve until both sides want it to resolve. Both sides have to be in enough pain that they’re like Let’s figure out a solution. If one side wants a solution and one is like Let’s keep the strike going, it’s going to keep going.