As moguls and writers fight over the spoils from DVD and digital-download revenue and celebrities on both coasts pound the pavement in solidarity with the scribes, there’s an unintended casualty in the Great Hollywood War of 2007: independent filmmaking.
Since actors are in such high demand, they’re also dropping out of projects for better-paying gigs and jacking up their fees. “There’s an actor I know who is getting a threefold raise just because he’s the only comedy guy left,” says entertainment attorney and producer John Sloss, who notes that all of his directing clients—from Richard Linklater to Kevin Smith—are working feverishly now in case there’s an actors’ strike.
Strike jitters have also forced cash-strapped indie producers to fork over more money for scripts and stars in a shorter time span than usual. “It puts you into a position of optioning something even if there’s just a 5 percent chance of making the film,” says one.
As dire as an extended strike may be, some indie players are searching for silver linings. Entertainment attorney Andrew Hurwitz, for example, says several of the major pre-strike studio projects could collapse because their scripts, written by WGA members, are not as polished as they need to be. “It’s unusual for a script to be totally locked,” he says. Without the chance for rewrites, the projects may be abandoned and the actors freed up for indie films ready to go with scripts written by non-WGA members.
Producer Anthony Bregman, who recently wrapped production on Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, agrees. “It was really difficult a month ago, but now it feels like a lot of those [studio] projects have fallen apart,” he says.