Hollywood Studios Brace for End of Strike, Start of Production: ‘It’s Going to Be a Full-On Horse-Trading Session’
When the director and top two stars of “Deadpool 3” showed up in Taylor Swift’s VIP suite at the New York Jets-Kansas City Chiefs game earlier this month, it fueled rumors that the pop star would appear in the film as the mutant rock-n-roller Dazzler. It also underscored the importance to Disney of the movie, which is expected to be the studio’s top priority when production resumes in the post-strike world.
“Deadpool” is one of several tentpole franchises that will dominate the production pipeline once SAG-AFTRA ends its strike and Hollywood fully gets back to work, insiders told TheWrap. Among studios’ other top priorities are the eighth installment of “Mission: Impossible,” “Beetlejuice 2” and “Captain America: Brave New World.” But a backlog of half-finished projects and others that are itching to get started has resulted in a traffic jam that will be complicated to free up.
Sorting out which of about a dozen major studio films get attention first will require some negotiation, particularly when it comes to talent. “There will be negotiating between studios for all levels of talent for what films get made or promoted first,” one high-ranking distribution executive told TheWrap. “It’s going to be a full-on horse-trading session.”
The double strikes by writers and actors left some films needing more time behind the camera and others needing only a few final pieces to bring them to the finish line.
Once the actors’ work stoppage ends (writers are already back to work thanks to the WGA’s new deal), first in line to get attention will be films that are still lacking ADR and minor reshoots, such as Sony’s “Kraven: The Hunter,” multiple insiders told TheWrap.
Next will be films whose principal photography is nearly complete, such as the Warner Bros. sequel “Beetlejuice 2.” After that, studios will move on to films that were in some form of pre-production.
“The immediate priority for all studios is to get the movies that were shut down in mid-production up and running again,” a top agent told TheWrap.
But the work stoppage has created a backlog of projects as many actors book their schedules years in advance, which could result in actors dropping out of films or TV shows in which they had previously intended to star.
“There’s no precedent, in terms of contractual obligation, for what films get started or restarted first,” a distribution executive said. An actor or filmmaker may have a contractual obligation to promote a given film at any point and that could be an issue if they’re simultaneously filming something that’s stopped mid-production.
Rachel Zegler could find herself torn between her duties shooting “Snow White” for Disney and promoting “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” for Lionsgate. Warner Bros. may have to race to finish “Beetlejuice 2” because of Jenna Ortega’s commitments to the second season of “Wednesday” or “Scream 7,” or in case Winona Ryder needs to be on the set for the fifth season of “Stranger Things.”
Still, the executive stressed that these are problems to be solved, not insurmountable challenges.
Filling the Schedule
One of the most important elements to Hollywood’s restart, outside of whether actors can promote new and existing titles, is getting the films that stopped mid-production back up as quickly as possible. That’s not purely to keep actors from having to decide between finishing a movie and promoting another, but to keep the content flowing in an already precarious theatrical atmosphere. No one wants a COVID-19-esque gap in the release schedule, with several months of no new features.
But which films could get done first?
For Disney, the R-rated “Deadpool 3” is keeping its May 3, 2024 release date. The summer season has worked for Disney in the past. The film has a lot of pressure on it to test whether the former Fox Marvel properties, now assimilated into the MCU, will provide extra value to the ongoing Multiverse saga.
Another nostalgia play close to completion is “Beetlejuice 2” for Warner Bros., which has a couple of days of principal photography left. Director Tim Burton told The Independent back in September that production is “99% done.”
Warner Bros. needs all the wins it can get, including the Clint Eastwood-directed legal thriller “Juror No. 2” that stars Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette, which had just two weeks left of filming. The drama is assumed to be the 93-year-old Eastwood’s swan song.
The Universal sequel “Twisters” was halfway through its 90-day shoot. The film stars Glen Powell and Daisy-Edgar Jones and is an attempt to try and turn one of the biggest stand-alone blockbusters of the 1990s into a franchise.
Production was about 40% complete on Paramount’s second half sequel “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Two,” once again spearheaded by filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie. The studio also has Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator 2,” starring Denzel Washington, which is halfway done with the Malta sets still standing. It is possible the two big movies from the same studio could resume production simultaneously, especially as Scott tends to shoot quickly.
Projects Waiting Until Next Year
Anything not already in production prior to the strike, or that isn’t as close to completion as it could be, will be punted to 2024. This helps keep the workflow going and prevents studios from resuming production only to shut down for For Your Consideration season or the December holidays.
A source close to Warner Bros. said most of the WBD slate was already scheduled to begin production in the first half of 2024, which includes the likes of James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy.” Other titles like “Mortal Kombat 2” and “Minecraft” will not restart or begin production until next year.
“Tron: Ares” — which shut down on its very first day of production — is valuable IP within the Disney theme parks, even if it doesn’t replicate the $400 million global total of “Tron: Legacy,” but it will take some time to get back to where it was.
Sony removed “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” the latest “Spider-Verse” installment, from the schedule when it moved “Kraven” since the actors were unable to record their lines.
COVID showed Hollywood that hitting a release date no longer needed to be of paramount importance. Movies like “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Free Guy” and “Dune” suffered delays and were bounced around the schedule for months, or years, and still earned best-case-scenario box offices. Even “Wicked Part One,” which would prefer to space itself out a year before “Wicked Part Two,” won’t live or die by whether it opens over Thanksgiving 2024.
But first, SAG-AFTRA and the AMPTP will need to horse-trade their way to an end to the strike.
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