{"id":575146,"date":"2023-05-19T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/cannes-multi-union-strike-fear-has-dealmakers-on-edge\/"},"modified":"2023-05-19T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T05:30:00","slug":"cannes-multi-union-strike-fear-has-dealmakers-on-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/cannes-multi-union-strike-fear-has-dealmakers-on-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"#Cannes: Multi-Union Strike Fear Has Dealmakers on Edge"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n As striking writers continue to walk picket lines in Los Angeles and New York, buyers and sellers are marching the Croisette, making their way to the Cannes film market. Whether or not they pack their bags with films in hand is still unclear.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Heading into the festival, dealmakers were largely confident, or at least vocally so, that the WGA strike would not have a major impact on the film market. Script<\/a>s for splashy packages had been rushed to get in prior to the May 1 strike deadline and the projects with A-list talent like\u00a0Andrew Garfield\u00a0and\u00a0Florence Pugh\u00a0seemed to have numbered more than many markets in recent memory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Now, on the ground, a slightly more complicated picture is emerging\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Top of mind is the potential for a multi-union strike. Less than a week before the opening of the Cannes market, the DGA entered contract negotiations with negotiations committee co-chair\u00a0Todd Holland\u00a0issuing what could be read as an ominous warning, saying, \u201cWe know there will be conflict.\u201d A week later, SAG-AFTRA\u2019s national board voted unanimously to recommend that members authorize a strike in advance of its own negotiations with the AMPTP.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n As of late, there has been a rush get projects unveiled as a DGA and SAG strike becomes more likely with each passing day. Says\u00a0Todd Brown\u00a0partner and head of acquisitions at XYZ Films: \u201cWe have a project that we\u2019re going to be announcing in the next couple of days because the talent reps are chasing us saying \u2018we want to get the word out there so people know we\u2019re not breaking picket.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n As for the WGA strike, with much more of a runway available than television networks, which are debuting fall schedules with predominantly unscripted fare (Golden Bachelor<\/em>, anyone?), executives felt confident in a cushion that would allow their film slates to weather the WGA storm. But one domestic distribution exec notes that should the strike last six months, that is when release calendars will start to feel the crunch.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis is the first time in a market where I\u2019ve been presented with scripts which are not the final script, coming with detailed director and producer notes about future significant changes,\u201d one buyer notes. The hope here being that the striking writer will come back and implement the notes quickly after an agreement is reached between the WGA and AMPTP. The buyers are left with a decision to purchase a project that may or may not be able to lens this year with a script that may or may not be done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Of the movies<\/a> being pre-sold at Cannes sans finished scripts,\u00a0David Garrett\u00a0CEO of Mister Smith Entertainment, says, \u201cEither those will be put on hold, and people will miss their summer window to shoot, or they go through and shoot with the poorer-quality script.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n With this in mind, projects currently in production, with deal terms in place, have become hot items. A finished film? Even better. Still, not even these are strike immune.\u00a0Aziz Ansari\u2019s Lionsgate feature\u00a0Good Fortune<\/em>, which co-stars\u00a0Seth Rogen\u00a0and\u00a0Keanu Reeves\u00a0and is up for sale in the market, had filming halted this week due to protesters.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n International productions aren\u2019t feeling as much heat. \u201cWe adapt Brazilian projects for Asia, South American films for Europe, whatever, all non-WGA scripts, so we aren\u2019t being impacted at all,\u201d says\u00a0Meg Thomson,\u00a0executive vp of worldwide content at Globalgate Entertainment, whose upcoming projects include the rom-com\u00a0Night and Day<\/em>, an adaptation of a\u00a0Virginia Woolf\u00a0novel set to star\u00a0Haley Bennett\u00a0and German actor\u00a0Elyas M\u2019Barek.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n But even if international productions are able to film, there is a question of whether or not they will stand with the striking guilds. Says Brown: \u201cThis time around, there is also a much greater degree of solidarity, both between the guilds and internationally, with writers\u2019 guilds in the U.K., Australia and Canada all expressing their support for the WGA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n Of course, all of this anxiety comes in the middle of a difficult macroeconomic climate that sees domestic studios and streamers implementing austerity measures, with waves of layoffs and Wall Street analysts demanding a pivot away from the streaming strategies that once bolstered stock valuations. There has been one phrase commonly thrown around since the top of the year about domestic studios\u2019 buying ability. Echoes a top sales agent: \u201cCrying poor.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n