The writers’ strike, in this Empire scribe’s humble opinion, is a noble and just cause, and more power to the collective elbow of the WGA and its members in trying to extract some extra money from the studios.
Perhaps the best way to do that is to have a serious and deleterious effect on production schedules over the next year or so. Already, the strike has forced several movies to be either cancelled or postponed, including Johnny Depp’s Shantaram, Oliver Stone’s Pinkville, and Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons.
And today, two more joined them on the sidelines.
Rogue Pictures has halted pre-production on Castlevania, its $40 million adaptation of the classic Konami vampire videogame that was set to start shooting in Sarf Africa next April, with Sylvain White at the helm.
And SpyGlass Entertainment has pulled the plug – for now – on Ironbow, Kevin Reynolds’ retelling of the legend of William Tell, the Swiss hero who was a deadshot with a crossbow.
Both movies weren’t quite there with their scripts, it seems (the news that a movie like Castlevania even has a script comes as something of a surprise, but it does, and it was written by none other than Paul W.S. Anderson), so the decision has been taken to wait until the strike is over before resuming production, even though Ironbow – which is written by Jay Wolpert, who penned The Count Of Monte Cristo for Reynolds – was a split apple away from beginning the casting process.
And, with the strike still showing no sign of coming to a conclusion, we have no idea when Castlevania and Ironbow will start again. We can’t say that we’re shedding too many tears over the former, but Ironbow sounds like it has promise. So, studios, the ball’s in your court…