Will Writers Strike Put a Damper on Cannes’ Big Business Plans?
variety.comCannes Film Festival rapidly approaches, workers have been racing to finish the job, with city officials confident that the Croisette will be back in glittering form in time for the red-carpet rollout on May 16.
Other problems facing Cannes, though, won’t be as easily paved over. With the Writers Guild of America on strike, film and TV production is expected to taper off.
If the Directors Guild or the Screen Actors Guild follow the WGA when their contracts expire in June, that slowdown could become a shutdown.
And since Cannes doesn’t just highlight the latest films but is also a thriving marketplace where companies buy scripts, hawk finished movies for distribution and put together big deals, one wonders how that uncertainty will impact sales. “It’s been a long time since there’s been a writers strike, so it’s hard to say how significant the impact will be,” says Glen Basner, the head of FilmNation, which has both the Jude Law-Alicia Vikander period drama “Firebrand” and the Sean Penn-Tye Sheridan thriller “Black Flies” bowing in the festival’s prestigious competition. “The question for movies that are being sold at the script stage is whether a screenplay is finished or requires more work.
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