wouldn’t they do that?” As of press time on Thursday, the studios’ festival gameplan is still unclear. Sources indicate there are ongoing discussions about pulling films from fall festivals entirely and moving their release dates. Alternately, if festival premieres are maintained, they’ll likely happen without the support of their actors. For Venice — a festival recognized for its mega-watt star power and glitzy red carpets — this is going to hurt. “The titles around Venice are star-driven,” said one senior PR source. “You need the actor shots for Venice because there are famous photos of them coming in on the boats, and it’s such an important platform for future awards titles. A lot of the competition titles are director-driven, so it wouldn’t necessarily affect the films’ awards future, but it would lose some of that glamor,” the PR added. A U.S.-based industry veteran predicted optimistically that, unlike the WGA strike, the actors strike could be resolved in as early as a few weeks, but that “it’s still going to be a total shit show at Venice and Toronto.” “I wouldn’t want to be Alberto Barbera trying to put together the lineup right now,” they noted. For Venice, it’s shaping up to be a wait-and-see situation. “We hope that, in the interests of the entire audio-visual industry, the parties will reach an agreement quickly,” the fest’s parent organization, the Venice Biennale, said in a statement. But the prospects that the SAG-AFTRA strike will subside before the Lido launches are grim.
