Hollywood actors went on strike, but that doesn’t mean no movies or shows are being made. On Tuesday, SAG has released a list of movies who have approval to continue shooting during the wider actors’ strike. The agreement to continue filming is tied to specific films that have agreed to SAG’s terms.
A total of thirty-nine projects have been approved to continue shooting. Amongst them: Mother Marya melodramatic story about a musician and a fashion designer, starring Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway; Death of a unicorn, starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega; And Flight risk, with Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg. Another project that got the green light is The chosen onea series about the life of Jesus Christ.
The list of films mostly comes from independent studios that are not part of the AMPTP, the organization against which the film actors rebel. One of the most prominent of these studios is A24, which remains independent despite producing many big hits, including last year’s best picture winner, Everything Everywhere Everything at once.
Regardless of the state of these studios, it’s still important that actors get approval for any screen acting they do. So all these productions have agreed on interim deals with SAG to continue filming these movies. While A24 and other studios have exceptions for these films, they don’t have blanket approval for everything they want to shoot: each project must be approved individually.
According to SAG’s executive director, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, these films going through benefit the actors because it proves how reasonable the union’s requests to studios really are. Therefore, the guild actually encourages actors in these projects to continue with their work.