2023-08-25 10:22:33
Even in the country of cultural exception, the consequences of the strikes in Hollywood are beginning to be felt. According to the CNC, to date, in France, seven film and series shoots have been directly affected by the movement of American screenwriters and actors.
Of these three films and four series already impacted, some saw their filming interrupted, others had to postpone the start date of shooting. According to our information, on the feature film side, there is notably the remake of “The Killer” with Omar Sy, by Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo, who made the original opus in 1989.
Filming, in the streets of Paris, stopped in July, one or two weeks from the end, according to our sources. That of “The Amateur”, a spy thriller with Rami Malek and Hugh Jackman, is also postponed. A third feature film, unidentified, saw its shooting postponed to 2024.
Six projects in the hot seat
On the series side, in addition to season 4 of “Emily in Paris”, produced by Netflix, the postponement of which was announced in June, the production of Amazon Prime Video “Etoile”, which plunges into the world of ballet between New York and Paris, with in particular Camille Cottin and Lou de Laâge, is affected.
Started at the beginning of the year in the streets of Paris, the filming of “The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon”, the spin-off of the series “The Walking Dead”, with Clémence Poésy, for the American channel AMC, is the stop. Finally, season 2 of an unidentified American series is concerned. To these seven pending projects, we must add six other projects in pre-production, the schedule of which could also be shifted if the Hollywood authors and actors do not resume work soon.
The impact is therefore not negligible for the French sector of the seventh art, even if it is much less affected than the British film industry, which is closely linked to Hollywood. Germany is also hit. At the historic Babelsberg studios in Potsdam, around 40 employees out of a hundred in total will be put on short-time working from September 1 and until March 2024, according to the German press.
Lack of visibility
In France, in 2022, American productions represented, according to the CNC, 15% of the overall volume of fiction filming activity (cinema and audiovisual, excluding animation), i.e. nearly 315 million euros (out of an overall volume of shootings reaching 2.1 billion euros in 2022).
It is too early to take stock of the consequences in France of this strike, started by the scriptwriters at the beginning of May and the actors in mid-July, and still in progress. But the professionals were already anticipating before the movement a 2023 exercise less strong on foreign filming than the year 2022, exceptionally dense. The social movement will only amplify this gap.
Thanks to local or European productions, however, activity is in full swing in certain studios such as those in Bry-sur-Marne, which are currently hosting French shoots. “For the moment, everything is going well, but we lack visibility for the fall and the first quarter of 2024”, nuance Guillaume de Menthon, the president of the Studios of Bry-sur-Marne, while American projects must be welcomed in some months.
The obstacle of JO
In Paris, where demand remains greater than the possibilities of reception, these Hollywood reports are almost welcome. “It’s the busiest summer in our history, I don’t know how we would have done if the Americans had been there…”, confides Michel Gomez, the delegate of the cinema mission at the City of Paris.
The capital has indeed hosted leading French shoots such as “The Count of Monte-Cristo”, with Pierre Niney, Anaïs Demoustier and Laurent Lafitte, and “De Gaulle”, with Simon Abkarian – two major Pathé productions -, or again the biopic “Monsieur Aznavour”. In addition to these period films, there have been several shoots of action series, another specialty of the City of Light, including “Duo de cops”.
If the strike continues, the consequences could be more severe for the entire sector, particularly in Ile-de-France. “With the Olympics in 2024, if we don’t manage to shoot the American series at the start of the year, it risks pushing them back for several months, it’s a big concern,” admits Michel Gomez. Another risk to foresee is that of saturation. “We risk a traffic jam at the time of the recovery”, warns Guillaume de Menthon. It will take several more years before the effects of the France 2030 plan, which must in particular double the surface area of film sets, are felt.
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