Actors Officially Go on Strike After Studios Failed to Close Deal With SAG-AFTRA; What Does This Mean for ‘Star Wars’?
These are almost unprecedented times. For the second time this year, a major Hollywood guild, this time the actors’, has gone on strike after the AMPTP failed to meet their demands by the time the deadline was set to expire for a new contract to be signed. SAG-AFTRA announced that actors will stop working after 11:59pm PT, July 13, during a press conference this morning.
From that time, no member of the guild will be allowed to work in any capacity in any production, which ranges from auditioning to promoting a film/series, and everything in between. This, combined with the still-ongoing writers’ strike, has effectively put Hollywood on pause. It is the first time in 60 years that both guilds are on strike at the same time.
This was a hard decision, but one that had been foreseen after the studios refused to accept the actors’ demands. Two of the biggest points of contention remain regulation of the use of AI, as well as transparency on streaming numbers and its subsequent increase in residual compensations for the actors. Coincidentally, these two, along with the creation of mini-rooms to force studios to hire a minimum number of writers to work on every show. (Notice that this would severely affect a series like The Mandalorian, which is almost exclusively written by Jon Favreau.) Per The Hollywood Reporter, the studios have publicly announced their latest proposal they brought to the negotiating table, which the actors refused to accept. It hasn’t been disclosed why they didn’t think this offer was good enough yet, but an official FAQ website for the strike has been announced and should be online within the next few hours: www.SAGAFTRAStrike.com
For a full breakdown of the strike, how it went down and details on the press conference, head over to our sister site MovieNewsNet.com, where I’ve personally written a full story on the meatier details. However, this is a Star Wars site, and as such, we have to question what this means for the Star Wars franchise. This isn’t an attempt to shift the focus; quite the opposite. It is to give an explanation of how this will affect our favorite TV shows and why it is vital for the actors and the writers to negotiate their fair share and force the greedy studios to come to an agreement with them.
What does this mean for Star Wars?
The SAG-AFTRA strike directly affects the Star Wars franchise in several ways. First, since actors cannot go out and do any promotions, Ahsoka will have a severe impact on its marketing campaign, and possibly, as a result, its viewership numbers on Disney Plus. But it goes well beyond that. Andor still has another month of principal photography, and after Tony Gilroy was forced to leave his on-set duties after receiving some pushback, it seems like shooting in the UK won’t save the Diego Luna-led cast from not going to work today.
However, Variety is reporting that local union rules are allowing HBO’s House of the Dragon season 2 to continue filming in the UK. This is because the cast is composed mainly of UK actors who are under the local union named Equity, whose members aren’t legally allowed to strike in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA. Part of the Andor cast is also British, so it remains to be seen if these rules will also apply to that show. Apparently, it’s illegal for Equity to strike in solidarity with the North American guild, per British legislation.
Even shows that are in post-production cannot call any actors to do ADR or record additional lines. This could affect Skeleton Crew to some degree, but especially The Acolyte, which just wrapped production in May. CGI characters that were to record their lines later won’t be able to do so for as long as the strike lasts. This is not as worrying for the studios, though, as there’s so much else to do in post-production they can always circle back to this after polishing the color correction or the sound design. But it will affect the schedules, for sure.
As far as animation goes, Michelle Ang recently teased that she’d finalized her recordings for The Bad Batch season 3, so perhaps the rest of the cast are close too, or have already wrapped. However, given how animation works, it’s always possible that they are called in a few months from now to re-record a few lines or do some additional work on last-minute scenes. That would not be possible under strike rules. We also know that Star Wars: Visions — Volume 3 is in development, but it’s way too early for this to affect it. Plus, the show is produced primarily outside of the US, so it shouldn’t be affected for now.
One series that could potentially see some delays is the second season of Tales of the Jedi, which was announced at Star Wars Celebration to be coming out in 2024. We don’t know for sure where it’s at in the production schedule, but in order for the show to hit next year, voice recordings must have been already underway, if not very close to starting, at the latest. That is one animated production that could be affected.
Due to the WGA strike, there was no Star Wars project that was close to starting pre-production. Had Steven Knight been able to work on the script as initially planned, casting for the next Star Wars movie could have started as soon as next month. (This is also why we’ve been hearing a lot of names thrown into the Superman: Legacy ensemble over the past few days.) In a way, Lucasfilm won’t be severely affected by this strike, not because some projects may not be delayed, but because they had only one live-action series still in production and nothing was close to starting to roll cameras. And yet, the point of the strike is to show the actors’ impact on the industry and how it cannot function without them. So perhaps it should severely affect the company and its parent studio.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
