AMC Entertainment’s CEO Adam Aron says the theater chain isn’t expecting the current WGA strike to impact the movie slate either this year and next – unless it is prolonged.
He tells Deadline that as far as its impact on AMC and the movie industry if the strike is a short one of a few months – its impact will mostly be felt by television as the movies for this year and next: “have pretty much been written, in many cases they’ve already been filmed”.
Thus only a “very prolonged writer’s strike would have a material impact.” He adds that AMC Theaters are “very sympathetic to the real problem that exists for members of the writer’s guild” and is hopeful that “producers and the writer’s guild can work in good faith to craft a solution that is good for all parties.”
To get around the strike, a handful of tentpole productions are shooting overseas, where the possibility of a shoot closing down is less likely. Studios have also either locked scripts or gotten a sign-off on not having a scribe on set.
Meanwhile, filmmaker Judd Apatow tells Variety he thinks the studios and streamers already have an idea of when the writers strike may end:
“I think they probably already know what they’re going to bend on. I would assume they already know what date this is going to end. They’ve probably been planning this for years… what’s scary about it is that there is a solution, but I’m not sure that all of the business interests are interested in getting to it quickly.”
Apatow says he doesn’t currently have any projects in production that are directly impacted by the strike, but the standstill impacts everything in development.
