NBCU’s Donna Langley On Actors Strike & Protecting The “Moviegoing Cadence”
12.10.2023 - 05:11
/ deadline.com
Donna Langley, Chairman, NBCUniversal Studio Group & Chief Content Officer, has been one of the key figures negotiating with the writers and actors.
While talks with the latter do not seem to have gone very well today, Langley didn’t give many details of the negotiations, but did say, “The best way I can say it is we’ve been spending time with the actors and we want to spend as much time as it takes to reach a resolution and get back to work.”
Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime event, Langley was asked why the writers strike took five months to be resolved. “It just took the time that it took,” she said.
She added that one of the reasons that she’s been so hands on during the talks was to make sure the pipeline of content continues, particularly for next year. “I’m not relishing the thought of another summer season without a volume of films. If I learned anything during Covid, it was the lack of volume that really does impact the moviegoing cadence,” she said. “If we lose that, that’s going to have a lasting impact on our industry.”
Asked about whether NBCUniversal is currently using A.I, given the importance of the technology during the talks, she said that it’s “not happening yet within my company”.
“We are big believers that… creativity does come from a human being,” she added.
Elsewhere, Langley, who was promoted over the summer, was asked whether she feels that NBCUniversal has the scale to compete with some of its big-spending rivals.
“Well, no,” she admitted, frankly.
She discussed the new role, which saw her take on television responsibilities as well as film. She said that the idea is to have a “content hub”. “So, in a company like ours, when we’re talking to content creators, you really want to be able to