If Empire ran Hollywood (and oh, how things would be different if we did), we would resolve the Writers’ Strike immediately. Like, now. In fact, yesterday. We’d give the writers whatever they want because movies are now beginning to drop like flies.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Ron Howard’s Da Vinci Code sequel, Angels & Demons, and Oliver Stone’s return to ‘Nam, Pinkville, had both been pushed back. There are also rumours that George Miller’s Justice League Of America movie might be postponed due to lack of a shooting script.
And today, two more movies became casualties of the strike.
First up is Mira Nair’s adaptation of the novel, Shantaram, which was set to shoot in India come February with Johnny Depp on board as a drug addict who escapes from prison and heads to Bombay, where he pretends to be a doctor. It’s not certain if Depp, who’s also producing, will make another movie now that he has an unexpected window in his schedule.
And then Rob Marshall’s latest musical, Nine, starring Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard has also been pushed back, from a March date to the second half of 2008. It’s the second blow for Nine in a week, after Catherine Zeta-Jones left the movie in an unrelated move.
Both films were delayed because the shooting scripts weren’t ready. Eric Roth is the Shantaram writer, while Anthony Minghella was the most recent script doctor to work on Nine, completing just three days of a polish on Michael Tolkin’s script before the picket lines went up.
So there you go. Is Hollywood finally getting the message and realising that writers are quite important in the grand scheme of things after all? Possibly – or perhaps studios are going to dig their heels in for a while and try not to worry as their late 2008/2009 slates fall apart around their ears.
But as more films get pushed back, or even cancelled altogether, we’re hopeful that studios will be galvanised into ending this thing sooner rather than later by giving the writers what they want.