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A Possible Strike Is Already Affecting Films
15-Jun-2008
Written by: Marshall Burns
A possible strike when the contract ends on June 30 is already affecting films.
A possible strike in the movie industry set for June 30 when the Screen Actors Guild's contract runs out may possibly already be affecting the film business, reported Reuters.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers issued a report on Thursday saying that a de facto strike is already “limiting the green-lighting of features and disrupting pilot production,” according to Reuters. A talent attorney told Reuters, “No one is doing anything that finishes after June 30, (and) nobody’s starting anything now. There is the impact of the strike already.”
This threat has pushed many projects into production in April so they would be able to finish filming by the June 30 deadline. DreamWorks is wrapping up two films, John Hamburg’s I Love You, Man and Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones, this week to avoid the deadline, reported Reuters. Paramount is doing the same thing as well as Warner, Universal, Disney, and Columbia/MGM, who is set to finish up the latest Bond flick within the next week. The date has become the “witching hour,” as Reuters put it.
There are a few big projects moving ahead with filming anyway in lieu of the possible strike because of the 2009 dates that they already have set to come out. Michael Bay’s follow-up to last years hit, Transformers, is already being filmed and Bay told Reuters that he can work on visual effects if a strike happens.
CEO of the Post Group Stephen Buchsbaum told Reuters, “We believe this will be worse than the WGA strike. During the WGA strike, we were doing projects that didn’t involve the WGA – some independent films, game shows and reality shows. Those all have SAG hosts, and unless there’s a side deal struck, we believe the impact will be catastrophic.”
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