Industry News
by saidiontheside

saidi’s take – 11/8/2023

Hello everyone,

FIRST… This afternoon, the studios made the unusual move of giving the actors an ultimatum for a new deal with the actors.  They gave deadline of 5pm PST today (11/8) for the deal to be done.  They probably gave the deadline because several people were getting worried that if a deal wasn’t complete this week it could do serious damage to the 2023-2024 television season and the summer 2024 movie release.  If you look at the rest of the calendar for this year, next week is one of the LAST full work weeks.  So, if a deal isn’t completed soon then there might not be any filming until 2024.

  • Nov 13 to 17 – One of the last FULL WORK WEEKS of this year
  • Nov 20 to 24 – Most people are on vacation for Thanksgiving
  • Nov 27 to Dec 1 – Probably the LAST full work week of 2023.
  • Dec 4 to 8 – Hanukkah starts on Fri Dec 8
  • Dec 11 to 15 – Hanukkah continues until all week until Fri Dec 15th
  • Dec 18 to 22 – Most studios are closed for the holidays the week before Christmas, but some productions may be working for a few days this week due to the strike.
  • Dec 25 to 29 – The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day everyone is usually on vacation.

THEN….. At around 4:30pm they officially announced that the actors negotiating committee unanimously approved a tentative new deal.  THE ACTORS STRIKE IS OVER AT 12:01AM (PST) THURSDAY 11/9.  Not sure if this was partly due to the ultimatum earlier in the day or if they were really close to a deal before the ultimatum.  This still puts the current television season in question – some are saying TV shows will start filming ASAP and might premiere on TV in March.  It also doesn’t completely save the Summer 2024 release schedule since there are still some movies currently scheduled for summer but haven’t finished filming yet.  After that they need to complete post production and VFX.

NOW… The first thing that will happen VERY SOON – as soon as TOMORROW – will be the actors promoting their movies and TV shows.  I’m sure the television talk shows are already filling up their schedules with actor appearances right now.  There’s also the award season campaigns.  There are a few movies already released that are hoping for awards early next year.  I’m sure there will soon be more industry screenings scheduled that include Q&A with the actors.

At least one person jumped the gun slightly since the strike isn’t officially over until 12:01am (PST) tonight.  Albert Brooks posted the following on his twitter this evening….

I agree with his comments.  I saw the documentary at AFI Fest a couple weeks ago.  HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!!!