Hollywood actors are on strike, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any movies or shows being made. On Tuesday, SAG released a list of films that have approval to continue shooting during the broader actors’ strike. The agreement to continue shooting is connected to specific movies that have agreed to SAG’s terms.
Thirty-nine total projects have been approved to continue shooting. Among them: Mother Mary, a melodramatic story about a musician and a fashion designer, starring Michaela Coel and Anne Hathaway; Death of a Unicorn, which stars Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega; and Flight Risk, starring Mel Gibson and Mark Wahlberg. Another project that got the green light is The Chosen, a series about the life of Jesus Christ.
The list of movies mostly come from independent studios that aren’t part of the AMPTP, the organization the screen actors are striking against. Among the most prominent of these studios is A24, which remains independent in spite of producing many big hits, including last year’s Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Regardless of the states of these studios, it is still important that actors secure approval for any screen acting work they do. So all of these productions have agreed to interim deals with SAG to continue filming these movies. While A24 and other studios got exceptions for these films, they don’t have blanket approval for anything they want to shoot: Each project will have to be approved individually.
According to SAG executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, these movies continuing on actually benefits the actors, in that it proves how reasonable the union’s requests to studios actually are. Because of the that, the guild actually encourages actors on these projects to continue their work.
