These productions are A24’s Death of a Unicorn directed by Alex Scharfman and starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega, shooting in Budapest, Bryan Fuller's Dust Bunny starring Mads Mikkelsen and Sigourney Weaver, which is also shooting in Budapest, and Romanian/British coproduction The Yellow Tie by Serge Ioan Celebidachi, starring Ben Schnetzer, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Sean Bean, which is currently shooting in Bucharest. The Yellow Tie is a coproduction between Romania’s Oblique Media Film and Celi Films (UK).
The list released by SAG - AFTRA on 18 July 2023 includes “productions that are signed to agreements within the scope of the strike order, but have signed Interim Agreements allowing them to resume. Members may work on these productions without being in violation of the strike order”.
The SAG - AFTRA strike, which has shut down productions globally, has had a major impact across the CEE region where servicing Hollywood productions is a big business.
In Malta, the General Workers Union has already started reaching out to crew members working on Gladiator 2 and it will be seeking a meeting with Film Commissioner Johann Grech out of concern for the impact that the SAG – AFTRA strike will have on the local film crews, Times of Malta reports.
Ridley Scott’s sequel to Gladiator (2000), which stars two members of SAG – AFTRA, Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal, has halted filming on 14 July 2023. The Paramount production is using an impressive local crew and approximately 700 extras in Malta. The shooting started in June and it was scheduled to last till the end of August 2023.
Shooting has also stopped in the Czech Republic for the second season of AMC’s Interview with a Vampire created by Rolin Jones, which was also due to wrap at the end of August 2023.
The shooting for the TV miniseries The Gray House directed by Roland Joffe stopped at Castel Film Studios, near Bucharest, on 15 July 2023 for one-week time. Sources told Film New Europe that 10 actors from the cast are members of the SAG - AFTRA and after a week of hold it will be decided what will come next. The financial losses of the discontinuation are difficult to evaluate at this point.
Over half of the six-episode miniseries produced by Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman has already been shot in Romania and the shooting was due to wrap in August 2023.
The Hungarian shoot for Apex directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Brad Pitt, is uncertain as the production halted shooting before reaching Hungary. The crew was supposed to film at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa next week and to attend Hungaroring in Mogyoród 21 – 23 July 2023.
