Sunday, November 25, 2007

Films fall to the strike

While I want to believe that these can all get back on track eventually, and hopefully even easier than a fallen tv series; a few films have started to feel the pressure of the WGA strike and fold before they get stuck in the lurch.

Oliver Stone's Pinkville, and Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code sequel Angels & Demons have both been put on indefinite hold after not quite managing to put their pieces in place before the strike began a few weeks ago. Both high profile pictures Pinkville is based on the on the investigation into the very screwed up Mai Lai Massacre in Vietnam, and was set to star Bruce Willis. If the strike does end soon its possible that the film could continue, but according to Variety Willis is set to start filming Jonathan Mostow's The Surrogates in February, so we'll have to see what 's what when the time comes.... hmm, odd about that Surrogates film, isn't Mostow set to direct something else? hmmm. As for Angels & Demons, well that seems more likely to actually come together. Disney has simply pushed the release date for the film back from Christmas '08 to May 15th '09. Unless this strike really goes on for a long time (which it admittedly might), then that should cover their bases.

Variety also reports that production has been delayed on Shantaram, a film set to star Johnny Depp in a role... well only a role Depp could play. Check out the wacked out sounding story on the wiki; sounds great if weird. And finally Rob Marshall's proposed musical about a stressed out director called Nine set to star Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz has been put on the backburner until the second half of '08. Sigh.

The good news is strike talks are expected to resume on November 26th (which is tomorrow morning) so let's all keep our fingers crossed that this is the beginning of the end, and our films don't start to fall apart like our tv shows. This could well be the first cinematic casualties of many; but I certainly hope not.

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