With the actors strike and writers strike in the rearview of 2023, there is a list of film and TV projects that are still experiencing delays.
The Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists was on strike for 144 days, which ended on Nov. 9. Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America began its 148-day strike slightly earlier and ended it on Sept. 27. The work stoppages cost Hollywood billions of dollars in delays, in addition to wreaking havoc on schedules at the box office and for online streaming companies.
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This pause in production affected the following television shows:
Netflix’s Unstable was revving up production for its second season in March when the WGA strike began. Its production restarted at the end of this year instead. The streaming service’s animated series Big Mouth was able to release its seventh season between the end of the WGA strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike. However, its production on its eighth and final season, announced in May, came to a halt. It now has a tentative release date of fall 2025.
Further, Netflix hit Emily in Paris has no release date because the series won’t begin filming in France and Italy until Jan. 15, 2024. In November, another one of the streamer’s top shows, Stranger Things, released a photograph of the fifth season’s script for its first episode, revealing that the writers were reunited and hard at work. Still, it also has yet to announce a release date. Showtime’s Yellow Jackets also does not have a release date for its third season when its preproduction phase was interrupted.
HBO’s The Last of Us has a production date of Feb. 12, 2024, for its second season. Before the WGA strike began, the second season had a rough draft outline and had a submitted script of its first episode hours before the strike began. As a result of the delays in television, the Emmy Awards was also postponed from September to Jan. 15, 2024.
Films have also been delayed due to the strikes. However, one movie that was in production this summer saw its release date move up. Wicked was days away from finishing filming when the SAG-AFTRA strike began. The two-part film series was slated for Christmas Day 2024 and the next year’s Christmas. Now, the release dates are Nov. 27, 2024, and Nov. 26, 2025.
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Joaquin Phoenix’s latest venture, The Island was about to begin production and has since started up again in September. There is no release date slated. Phoenix was in Napolean this year, which was released in November, and unaffected by the strike in its production but received less promotion by the actors involved due to the strike. He will also star in Joker 2: Folie à Deux which is expected in October 2024.
Marvel Studios shifted its entire release schedule for seven movies through 2027. Its untitled Deadpool movie was originally scheduled for May 2024, but has since taken on the release date of Captain America: Brave New World, which will now come out on February 14, 2025, which was the date of Blade, which has a new date of November 7, 2025. That Valentine’s day was also the previous schedule for Fantastic Four, which will instead release on May 2, 2025, which was Avengers: Kang Dynasty’s date but shifted to May 1, 2026, which was when its sequel Avengers: Secret Wars was meant to hit theaters but instead will come a year later on May 7, 2027. Finally the Thunderbolts movie moved its December 20, 2024 date to July 25, 2025
