The writer’s strike may be over, but the effects are still be felt through the industry. While Warner Bros. is pushing ahead with the Justice League movie, other features could be delayed as the industry scrambles to regroup following the settlement, and await the next big walk out.
The next walk out? The Screen Actor’s Guild is next up to the table to negotiate contracts, and even the slightest hint of a strike is causing the studios to hold off on any new productions that can’t wrap shooting by June 30.
“Transformers 2” director Michael Bay said the labor cloud has made the process harder, but not impossible as he tries to keep the film on track for its June 26, 2009 release.
“If there is a strike, we shut down, but shutting down isn’t that big a deal,” Bay said. “You make accommodations, you make a deal with vending houses on equipment and on the stages where you are shooting. You hope for the best, but you can’t be incapacitated by the possibility that there will be a strike. We’ve got to get this town back to work. I can’t imagine anyone wants another strike, we’re all tired. Hopefully clearer heads will prevail.”
Bay said that the sequel is still recovering from the writer’s strike, and that he’s playing catch-up after getting back his trio of writers, Ehren Kruger, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.
If Miller can’t get his JLA movie done in time, we could hear word in the next couple of months that the film has been delayed again. The new Terminator movie begins shooting May 5, while Transformers begins shooting in early June. If the actors strike, look for all sort of shuffling as the studios scramble to fill the summer 2009 schedule.
Paramount may have anticipated the delay when the studio announced it was moving the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie from a December 2008 release to the now scheduled May 2009 date.