Like the rest of Hollywood, the filming of Deadpool 3 has ground to a halt from July 14 onwards, due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. The Marvel movie is one of the first big productions to be impacted by the actors’ strike. The actors have now joined the writers on the picket lines, who have been striking for 70 days already.
The vast majority of SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 members are not the famous and recognizable stars who are highly compensated for their work. As well as actors, the union is made up of announcers, hosts, DJs, stunt performers and broadcast journalists.
One of the major factors in the strike is the new streaming landscape, which does not provide TV actors the residuals they were previously used to. TV series are now being pulled from the platforms all together, sometimes shortly after airing, to avoid paying residuals at all. The increasing use of AI is also a threat to both writers and actors, with ‘background performers’ or extras reporting that they’ve been scanned so their likeness can be replicated in future.
Deadpool 3 has ceased filming just days after the Ryan Reynolds released the first set photo – which teased Hugh Jackman in Wolverine‘s comic-accurate yellow suit – something the fans have wanted to see for decades. It was also recently announced that Jennifer Garner would be returning to the role of Elektra, for the first time in almost 20 years, in Deadpool 3.
It’s not just filming that is affected by the actors’ strike. Promotion is also part of it, so the actors left the London premiere of Oppenheimer, once the strike went into effect. The extremely heavy Barbie promotion that Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling have been taking part in is also now over. The upcoming San Diego Comic-Con will be an extremely different beast to what it’s been like for the last decade or more, if the strike is still in effect by July 20, when it begins.
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