Imagine Entertainment Execs Justin Wilkes And Sara Bernstein On New Barbara Walters Doc, Big Slate Of Emmy Contenders

When Barbara Walters joined ABC news in 1976, she became the highest paid journalist in the U.S. – pulling in $1 million a year. That, not surprisingly, triggered a lot of resentment among her peers, none more so than her evening news co-anchor Harry Reasoner.

Overcoming envy and sexism and balancing a career and motherhood, Walters reached the pinnacle of her profession and stayed there, a story explored in the new documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything. The film directed by Jackie Jesko premieres Thursday evening at Tribeca Festival in New York.

The feature, which debuts on Hulu later this month, is the latest from Imagine Documentaries, the enormously successful nonfiction division of the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. On the latest edition of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we explore the company’s upcoming docs and impressive slate of Emmy contenders with Imagine Entertainment President Justin Wilkes and Imagine Documentaries President Sara Bernstein.

Taking their cue from the Barbara Walters documentary subtitle – Tell Me Everything – Wilkes and Bernstein tell us everything: why Imagine got into documentaries, how the Barbara Walters project came about, how they work with estates and other stakeholders on celebrity biographies without surrendering editorial independence, and what they see as the future of branded content in the nonfiction and fiction spaces.

Imagine Documentaries won five Emmys last year for its film Jim Henson Idea Man, directed by Ron Howard. While the Television Academy has proven receptive to honoring documentaries about well-known people, the documentary branch of the Motion Picture Academy has demonstrated reluctance to do likewise. Wilkes shares his unvarnished thoughts about how the Academy could change voting rules to give celebrity-oriented documentaries a fair shake.

The Imagine execs also respond to a recent article in the Hollywood trade papers asserting that music and other celebrity films are “killing the documentary.” They don’t see it that way.

That’s on the latest edition of the Doc Talk podcast, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.

Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple.
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