Hawk Koch on the Hollywood Strikes and the Magic of Movies

As of posting time, SAG/AFTRA (actors) and WGA (writers) were still on strike. Our guest Hawk Koch has been through a few strikes in his six decades in the entertainment industry, on both sides of the table. The studios have their offer on the table, so do the writers and actors, and talks continue. Hawk has been heartened by the Barbenheimer phenomenon with people returning to the theaters after the isolation of the pandemic. A key issue is the strange new world of streaming services, where no one knows how many people are seeing the shows, or how much revenue they are generating, thanks to the opaque nature of big tech companies like Netflix, Max, Amazon and Apple. Hawk has produced more than 60 films (from Wayne's World to Chinatown) and was head of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. He is the one half of the only father-son duo to head the Academy (Howard Koch Sr.) When he was head of the Producers Guild of America, he worked with partner Mark Gordon to professionalize the craft and instituted the Producers Mark. Koch serves on the board of directors for AMC Entertainment, the Motion Picture and Television Fund, the Producers Guild of America, and the National Film Preservation Foundation. He lives with wife Molly in Ojai but still keeps himself busy with new projects. We talked about the accelerating rate of change in the business, and whether the studios and creative talents are worried about each other, when the looming threat of Big Tech threatens their entire way of life, through Artificial Generated Intelligence and their general disregard and lack of love for the magic of films. Hawk is a return guest from 2020 when he published "Magic Time," his memoir about growing up on movie sets and his distinguished career. We did not talk about Mack Sennett, the Lumiére Brothers or magic lantern shows.