19 TV Shows That Have Been Delayed Or Straight-Up Canceled Because Of The Hollywood Strikes
Hollywood has several problems, much like every other industry in the US. Aside from general corporate greed — like how streaming services pay actors and writers on hit shows mere pennies in residuals, forcing many of them to get second and third day jobs — studios also want to use AI technology to replace actors and imitate their likeness on screen.
The unfortunate truth is that only 14% of people in the Screen Actors Guild make enough money to qualify for health insurance. That means 86% of working actors make less than $26,500 per year. In an effort to get more fair wages and working conditions, members of the Writers Guild of America started striking in May, and members of the Screen Actors Guild started striking in July.
Now, as production has stopped altogether, studios are delaying (and straight-up canceling) upcoming shows and movies. Below are a bunch of new releases that have been affected.
1.Agatha: Darkhold Diaries, aka the WandaVision spinoff centered around Kathryn Hahn as Agatha Harkness, has been delayed an entire year. The new release date is set for early fall of 2024.
In typical Marvel fashion, the current plot is being kept under wraps, but the series (which has now changed its name twice) will also star Aubrey Plaza, Joe Locke, Patti LuPone, and Sasheer Zamata.
2.Season 5 of Stranger Things has been delayed until 2025, but that date is expected to be pushed back even more. By that point, all of the “child” actors will be in their 20s.
According to the Duffer Brothers, the show's creators, this final season will be centered around Will (Noah Schnapp's character): "This emotional arc for him is what we feel is going to hopefully tie the whole series together. Will is used to being the young one, the introverted one, the one that’s being protected. So part of his journey, it’s not just sexuality — it’s Will coming into his own as a young man.”
3.A League of Their Own has been canceled altogether, which came as a huge shock to its stars and creators, because the show had already been renewed for a shortened second season.
Abbi Jacobson, one of the show's stars and creators, called out Amazon Studios in an Instagram post after hearing about the show's cancellation, saying, "To blame this cancellation on the strike (which is an essential fight for fair wages, protections and working conditions, etc.) is bullsh*t and cowardly. But this post isn’t about all that. About all the ways this show has been put through the ringer. Not today."
She then went on to thank the cast and crew for helping to make a great show she's genuinely proud of. (And she's right! That show is so fantastic, and we deserved a second season.)
4.Euphoria has been delayed all the way until 2025. Creator Sam Levinson said he sees the third season as a “film noir" and he intends on exploring "what it means to be an individual with principles in a corrupt world" through Zendaya's character, Rue.
Back in April, Heidi Biven, the costume designer on Euphoria, revealed that Season 3 may take place five years in the future, but nothing is currently set in stone. "There is talk of it being approximately five years in the future, and that they’re not in high school anymore...but knowing Sam’s brain, it’s gonna be exciting, and he will challenge all of us, because he won't want to repeat himself. It’ll be something new for the audience to discover," Heidi said.
5.IronHeart, the six-episode spinoff of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, was removed from Disney’s schedule entirely. It was originally going to be released this fall, but there's no word on if the miniseries will premiere in 2024 or 2025.
All six episodes have already been filmed, and it'll follow Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) as the genius inventor who created her own Iron Man–like suit. Alden Ehrenreich, Anthony Ramos, and Lyric Ross will also star in the miniseries.
6.Season 49 of Saturday Night Live would have begun this month, but that’s obviously been postponed until an agreement with the studios is made. They actually ended the last season three episodes early because of the writers strike, and those three hosts would have been Pete Davidson, Kieran Culkin, and Jennifer Coolidge.
By now, we'd typically have a list of the full cast (i.e. who's not returning and who's joining as a featured player), but we still haven't heard any news.
7.There’s no release date for Season 2 of Severance yet because production paused early in the writers strike. They’re expecting an early 2024 release, but that’ll probably be delayed again.
8.Season 3 of Yellowjackets has been delayed as well. It was renewed in December of 2022, but the writers only had one day in the writers room before the WGA strike began, so production was immediately put on hold.
Ashley Lyle, one of the show's writers and co-creators, revealed that a bonus episode will air before the third season starts (potentially in March of 2024), but no specific date has been released yet.
9.The Daredevil: Born Again series will be a continuation of the 2015 series. It was originally going to be released this coming spring, but production had to stop because of the strikes, and there’s no new release date in sight.
The first season of the show will have 18 episodes, and it will star Charlie Cox, Jon Bernthal, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Sandrine Holt.
10.Jodie Foster will be leading Season 4 of True Detective, which was intended to release this year. The season has now been pushed back to January 2024.
This new season of the anthology crime drama will also star Kali Reis, John Hawkes, and Fiona Shaw.
11.Metropolis, a TV series based on the 1927 silent movie with the same name, was canceled entirely due to the writers strike and "ongoing costs."
This sci-fi series was going to be super special effects–heavy, and apparently scripts weren't getting finished in time, which made budgeting for the show especially difficult. All of this sort of snowballed when the strikes occurred, and Apple TV+ decided to cancel it altogether.
12.Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is set to star in Marvel's new Wonder Man miniseries, but production stopped in May, and we still haven’t been given a release date. Oscar winner Ben Kingsley also joins the cast, and there will be 10 episodes total, which will resume production when the strikes are over.
According to the series' synopsis, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will play Simon Williams, a Hollywood actor who's "thrust into the world of superheroes as he gets powers of his own and becomes the new superhero Wonder Man."
13.Marvel's Echo series was delayed from November of this year until January 2024. The first season will have only five episodes, follow the events of Hawkeye, and include a bunch of the Daredevil cast (after all, Echo is Kingpin's adoptive daughter in the comics).
According to Marvel's site, this series will highlight the origin story of Echo (played by Alaqua Cox) after she leaves New York and goes home to Oklahoma: "She must face her past, reconnect with her Native American roots, and embrace the meaning of family and community if she ever hopes to move forward."
14.X-Men ‘97 was originally meant to be released this fall, but it's now been pushed back to January 3, 2024. This will be a continuation of the original 1990s animated series.
A lot of the original voice actors will be returning in new roles, and there will be 10 episodes in the first season.
15.Season 2 of Loot would have been released back in June, but production stopped because star and co-producer Maya Rudolph refused to return to set when the writers strike began, in solidarity. There’s no new release date yet.
The series also stars Michaela Rodriguez, Joel Kim Booster, and Adam Scott.
16.Season 3 of Abbott Elementary was originally going to be released during the fall lineup this month, but production stopped during the writers strike. There’s still no word on a new release date, but it's extremely doubtful that we'll get any new episodes until 2024 at the earliest.
Even with these delays, the new season of Abbott is still expected to have 22 episodes.
17.The Peripheral was originally renewed for a second season, but the ongoing strikes "heavily influenced" Amazon's decision to cancel it.
The series starred Chloë Grace Moretz, Jack Reynor, and T'Nia Miller, and it was based on the William Gibson novel with the same name.
18.The Boys finished filming Season 4 back in April, but the premiere has been delayed indefinitely. Some are speculating that it'll return in mid-2024, but the studio has yet to release an actual date.
Gen V, a spinoff of The Boys that's set in the same timeline, will premiere at the end of this month. This particular gritty series will be centered around a group of young adults at a superheroes-only college, and many characters from the original series will appear. Patrick Schwarzenegger, Jaz Sinclair, Chance Perdomo, and Jason Ritter are set to star.
19.And, of course, every late-night talk show has been suspended until the strikes are over. In late August, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel teamed up to create the Strike Force Five podcast, in which proceeds will go to their late-night staffers and writers. Their respective shows will return when an agreement occurs between the guilds and studios.
Most daytime talk shows aren't going dark during the strikes. Some shows have already wrapped production for the season, and others simply weren't affected because they don't employee writers from the guild.
The View, for example, has been filming everything without writers — all notecards that appear during the show have previously been written by the hosts themselves. Back in June, Dermot Mulroney even walked off mid-interview to show support for everyone striking. A true king.
But Drew Barrymore just announced that her talk show will be returning, despite employing writers in the union. Though Drew's appearance as host on the talk show doesn't violate any strike rules (daytime talk shows have a different SAG contract), they will be in violation if any writing on the show occurs.
