Hugh Jackman’s Deadpool 3 blockbuster halted amid Hollywood strike chaos
Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine will be delayed as production on the highly anticipated Deadpool 3 stopped filming amid Hollywood’s historic strike.
Hugh Jackman’s return as Wolverine opposite Ryan Reynolds as a flawed superhero in Deadpool 3 could be delayed as production on the highly anticipated film ground to a halt after Hollywood’s actors voted to join the industry’s writers on strike.
The Shawn Levy-directed film began shooting in London in late May, with Succession star Matthew Macfadyen and The Crown’s Emma Corrin joining Jackman and Reynolds in the cast.
The film had been slated for a May 3, 2024 release in cinemas — a date that is now in jeopardy due to the production halt.
Filming on Deadpool 3 had managed to continue through the writers strike because the project had a finished script but the sudden suspension of filming foreshadows Hollywood’s industry-wide halt that’s now in store as actors joined writers on the picket lines.
But Deadpool 3 is not the only tentpole film up in the air as Hollywood shut down for the foreseeable future after negotiations to reach a new contract with production studios ended without an agreement.
In a historic move, actors have joined writers in the first industry-wide walkout for 63 years, effectively bringing the giant movie and television business to a halt.
The strike action, which Disney boss Bob Iger (who earns a staggering A$44 million per year) called “very disturbing”, will also likely delay the release dates of Ridley Scott’s high octane Gladiator sequel and Tom Cruise’s eighth Mission: Impossible instalment, after the actors strike began last night.
Filming on the UK set of highly anticipated big screen adaptation of Wicked, starring Ariana Grande, ceased on Friday and filming on Beetlejuice 2, starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, and Catherine O’Hara, and horror movie Speak No Evil, starring James McAvoy, also stopped.
However, in a strange quirk, the second season of the Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, can continue filming in the UK despite the ongoing strikes in the US.
This is down to the fact that the cast is made up of primarily British actors whose contracts are under the local union Equity – whose members are legally not allowed to strike in solidarity with US workers.
Fortunately for fans of The Lord of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, the second season has just recently finished filming – in good news for Amazon which is expected to spend more than A$1.5 billion producing the series.
But for some of the biggest hits this year, from Barbie, to Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible 7, the strikes mean studio executives face being unable to market their big-budget productions.
Meanwhile in the US, from Los Angeles to New York, actors, writers and other workers have taken to the streets while holding up signs and demanding better pay.
The industrial action means press junkets for film premieres in the coming months will be cancelled, and the Emmy Awards face being postponed.
On Thursday night, stars such as Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Rami Malek left the London premiere of the Oscar-hyped Oppenheimer to “go and write their picket signs” in preparation for the “imminent” strike by the actors’ union.
STRIKE BEING FELT IN AUSTRALIA
Hollywood’s first strike in more than 60 years is being felt in Australia, with hundreds of local film and TV industry workers expected to be stood down on Friday.
The industrial action was prompted after the union representing the actors – the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists – walked away from negotiations over royalties and the use of artificial intelligence.
Action kicked off at 5pm AEST last night, with some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names, including Margot Robbie and Matt Damon, expected to hit the picket lines.
The strike will also take actors out of promotional work for their new films and shows.
It is the first time since 1960 that TV and movie actors — 160,000 in total — will join screenwriters in action that will suspend production of popular films and shows.
It was reported that at least feature films being filmed on the Gold Coast were set to halt production on Friday.
Mortal Kombat 2, a Warner Bros martial arts fantasy, and Universal Studios’ drama Apples Never Fall, starring Sam Neill and Annette Bening, were reported to be impacted by the Hollywood strike action.
Screen Producers Australia (SPA) confirmed in a statement that the strike would also apply to some US-backed but domestically-produced TV shows and films.
“SPA anticipates that a limited number of scripted (non-Australian) productions will be affected by the strike, with cast and crew stood down while the strike continues,” the statement read.
“Local scripted productions, produced and controlled by Australian production companies, engaging Australian and Imported SAG members, will remain unaffected by the strike order provided they engage all cast under Australian Industry Contracts in accordance with the Global Rule One Agreement between SAG-AFTRA and the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA).”
While the local union indicated it supported the US strike, it warned its members would not be protected if they took similar action.
Claire Pullen, executive director of the Australian Writers Guild said: “It’s disappointing, but not surprising, that SAG-AFTRA has been pushed to this point.
“After all, if the studios were willing to be reasonable, writers wouldn’t have had to be on strike for 10 weeks. It’s really concerning that the big issues of fair pay, royalties, and AI are not being resolved quickly and fairly for either writers or actors,” she said.
“It was difficult for writers to hear that studio executives want to starve writers out and want writers to lose their homes; no doubt they think the same things about actors, too, but at the end of the day, without creative talent there is no TV or film consumers will want to watch, or pay for. It’s in everyone’s best interests for the strike to be resolved quickly.
“I can’t help but remember that as at week seven of the writers’ strike the studios had already lost more money with disrupted production than paying the writers’ claim in full would cost, and now they are running towards the same sort of losses with the actors too. It makes sense for the studios to cut a deal and get everyone back to work.”
Pullen said Australian writers have some advantages compared to their American counterparts.
“Some of the things the WGA is fighting are the norm here in Australia,” Pullen said.
“Writers here often have precarious wages, working short term gig to short term gig. It is always a battle to retain the rights to your work and therefore royalties, and smaller writers rooms are much more common here. On the flip side, given our government has flagged we will be introducing local content quotas on streaming services, it is the perfect time to invest in quality content and grow the industry by paying creative workers well. There’s opportunity here.”
MARGOT ROBBIE WILL ‘ABSOLUTELY’ GO ON STRIKE
Australian screen star Margot Robbie, who is currently on a global tour spruiking the Barbie movie, said prior to the vote that she would “absolutely” go on strike.
“I’m very much in support of all the unions and I’m a part of (the Screen Actors Guild), so I would absolutely stand by that,” she said.
In London, the star-studded cast of the new Christopher Nolan blockbuster Oppenheimer walked out of the film’s premiere in solidarity.
“This isn’t an academic exercise. This is real life-and-death stuff,” actor Matt Damon said.
“Hopefully we get to a resolution quickly. No one wants a work stoppage, but we’ve got to get a fair deal.”
SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, best known for playing Fran Fine in TV show The Nanny, said she was “shocked by the way the people we have been in business with are treating us”.
“I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things, how they plead poverty that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions to their CEOs. It is disgusting.” she told reporters.
“We demand respect. You cannot exist without us.”
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the Hollywood studios, said it was “deeply disappointed” the actors decided to go on strike.
It argued it had offered “historic pay and residual increases” on top of a “groundbreaking AI proposal that protects actors’ digital likenesses”.
“Rather than continuing to negotiate, SAG-AFTRA has put us on a course that will deepen the financial hardship for thousands who depend on the industry for their livelihoods,” the alliance said in a statement.
About 11,500 screenwriters went on strike at the start of May, halting production on TV shows and new movies while forcing late-night television talk shows to air re-runs.
The last simultaneous strike in 1960 – when Marilyn Monroe was still a big screen star – was fought over royalty payments from films sold to television networks.
HBO boss Casey Bloys predicted audiences would begin to notice the impact of the strike next year.
“At least through the end of 2023, we’re okay. Then into ‘24, it starts to get dicier,” he told Variety.
The New York Times reported that 80 per cent of the scripted industry had already been suspended by the writers’ strike, with the full shutdown likely to mean hit TV shows that were expected to return this spring would be delayed.
Disney chief executive Bob Iger criticised the unrealistic expectations of the unions, saying the strike action was “very disturbing” at what was “the worst time in the world to add to (the) disruption” caused by the pandemic.
Streaming platforms have recently suffered heavy financial losses, while also driving down traditional TV viewer numbers and cannibalising advertising revenue.
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