After Strikes and COVID, Global Production Will See Cautious Uptick in 2024
variety.comBen Croll After six months of strike-related stoppages, global production is set to resume in a massive way, as producers, execs and day-to-day facilitators anticipate an early 2024 surge in production that could very well last throughout the calendar year.
Only (and tellingly) — despite such evident and abundant relief — all of those facilitators are also quite measured in their optimism. “I keep telling [my members] not to expect that same post-COVID insanity,” says International Location Managers Guild president John Rakich. “I don’t think we’re going to see that insane [post-lockdown stretch] of two years straight of just back to back work.
That might be the case for a few months [as we deal with the bottleneck of productions ready to shoot] but ultimately this business is cyclical, and I want our members to plan accordingly.” Given that cyclical nature, and given a foreseen contraction in full-season streaming commissions, Rakich anticipates an eventual return to a more seasonal production cycle buoyed by more features than in previous years, and once again influenced by labor uncertainty — especially once the IATSE deal opens for negotiation next spring.
Indeed, with two strikes now resolved, the prospect of a third has already galvanized major institutional players. “A lot of the year-long projects are already looking elsewhere,” Rakich explains. “Right now, many studio productions are already casting their eyes to [non-IATSE affected industries] in Canada, the U.K.
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