Hollywood twin strikes to affect Emmys, New York Film Festival, Comic Con and more

The recent decision of the SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) to initiate a strike has been announced. This move is in response to the ongoing strike by the Writers' Guild Association (WGA). With approximately 160,000 members, the SAG-AFTRA union is facing challenges in promoting its upcoming projects. Consequently, the upcoming film festivals in the fall are set to be affected by the Actors' Strike.

3 things you need to know: 

• SAG-AFTRA recently announced their initiation to conduct an Actors’ strike. 
• The strike will start on July 14, Pacific time. 
• The SAG-AFTRA strike comes after their conversations with major studios resulted in failure. 

Writers' and Actors' strikes create a compounded effect 

The WGA strike commenced in May and started a cascading effect on a number of Hollywood projects. Shows which were under development such as The Wheel of Time, Daredevil: Born Again and others were stopped with immediate effect. This is due to the writers refusing to work on scripts unless the WGA would reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). 

(SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher after making the announcement for the Actors' Strike | Image: AP)

Now, a similar issue beguiles the SAG-AFTRA centric strike which will potentially halt the shoot of most shows as the actors would not be shooting for them. While previously if shows had a complete script, the production would usually move on. Now, since the actors are not allowed to shoot or promote their projects, there's no way to move forward unless an agreement is reached. 

NY Film Festival, Telluride to get heavily impacted

The Toronto, Telluride, and New York Film Festivals are expected to face significant repercussions due to the WGA/SAG strike. According to Variety, a studio executive emphasized the crucial role of stars in movie premieres, stating, "You can't premiere movies without your stars." The executive concluded that without stars, there would be no movie.

Nevertheless, the impact on the Telluride Film Festival is predicted to be relatively minimal compared to the other festivals. The outlet explains that actors could potentially attend the festival as regular attendees. However, there is a caveat: they would still be unable to promote any of their upcoming projects.

(I, Tonya, which was screened at the TIFF | Image: TIFF/Twitter)

The Toronto Film Festival is anticipated to bear the brunt of the impact caused by the strike. This is mainly because the festival is known for its red-carpet events that showcase numerous stars. An example of an upcoming film in TIFF is Next Goal Wins from the creators of Thor: Love and Thunder, which is expected to garner significant attention due to its successful performance in 2014.

No excitement for Emmy's and Comic-Con 

The upcoming Emmy Awards, for which the nominations were announced recently, are also going to be affected by the twin strikes. Since most nominees are either part of SAG-AFTRA or WGA, it is unlikely that much buzz is going to be created for the awardees. 

(A poster for the 75th Emmy awards | Image: TelevisionAcademy/Twitter)

Moreover, the San Diego Comic Con, set to kick off on July 20, has already seen a number of panel cancellations. Panels for Wheel of Time, Sesame Street and more have been removed, and further cancellations of panels are also expected.

Studios rush to save investments

Following the sudden escalation of the writers-actors' strike, studios are currently engaged in negotiations to reach a new agreement with the union. Additionally, according to the outlet, there is a possibility that several studios might withdraw their films from the festivals, potentially due to a desire to reduce spending.

The actors’ strike has also brought attention to a conversation between a negotiator named Duncan Crabtree Island and a studio representative. Reportedly, the studio proposed a scenario where actors would only be paid for one day of work, while artificial intelligence (AI) would be used to digitally replicate their likeness for the rest of the role. This unexpected turn of events marks the first acting strike since the 1980s.