SAG

After a paralyzing 118 days, the actors’ strike is now, finally, looking like it’s over, following hard in the footsteps of the similarly resolved WGA strike a couple of weeks ago. The SAG are claiming victory over the studios, who took an exceptionally long time to ratify demands that included everything from increased fees for work appearing on streaming services, to protections regarding the use of AI, to reproduce actors’ images on screen. There were many times during the strike when it looked as if both sides were simply too far apart to achieve a resolution. In the end, money talks: the major Hollywood studios and streaming services realized that without the swift agreement they needed, there would be a drought of product in the marketplace next year, and beyond.

The news that Denis Villeneuve’s keenly anticipated Dune sequel is to be delayed from its previously announced November release date until next March is both unwelcome and far from unexpected. It also brings back memories of the pandemic, when films were routinely postponed for months, even years; it is not hard to remember how the Bond film No Time To Die ended up having its original release date of April 2020 put back until October 2021, by which time Billie Eilish’s theme song had acquired all the familiarity of a much-loved old standard, and the film’s trailers had long since melted into ubiquity. And countless equally delayed pictures simply flopped at the box office, as audiences stayed away, bored by seeing the same marketing materials forever.