LOS ANGELES, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The Warner Bros (WBD.O) movie studio will delay the planned November release of a big-budget “Dune” sequel until March, a studio spokesperson said on Thursday, because its stars cannot promote the movie during the Hollywood actors’ strike.
Top stars have refused to promote upcoming projects since the SAG-AFTRA actors union joined striking Hollywood writers and walked off the job on July 14.
Reuters, top stars cannot promote because that is a part of the rules of their union. I hate the way this is written.
It’s interesting to me that the delay was not due to a technical issue with the movie (ie necessary reshoots), but solely for marketing purposes.
To me this says two things:
- The no promotion clause in the SAG strike is absolutely crucial, and it’s a good thing it exists.
- The studios aren’t anticipating the strike lasting through March. (Though that’s still ~6 months out.)
I’m hopeful this means that the studios will knuckle under soon, but pushing it out to March means the studios could be planning a whole extra three months of jerking their employees around.
As an aside, I know they had already started releasing trailers before the delay was announced, so I’m wondering what changed internally that they think the marketing will no longer work. Did testing prove they need actor promotion? Or did they think they could crush the strike previously and realize they couldn’t? Either way, this is a very interesting case.
It’s the big studios causing the problems. All they need to do is sign the contract and everyone can get back to work. Somehow the smaller studios had no problem signing. This is an easy fix, sign it. ✊
