The fact that A24’s new movie, Problemist, won’t come out in August as planned shows that studios aren’t listening to writers and actors. The Julio Torres movie was only going to be shown in a few places on August 4, according to Deadline. Now, the date of release will be set at some point in the future. This is because SAG-AFTRA and the WGA could not reach a deal with the companies. Because of what the companies did, this is just the first of many delays and setbacks we’ll see.
This is the second August release, whose date has been pushed back. A release date for Lionsgate’s White Bird is also uncertain because of the strikes. We don’t know if these movies will go back on the release date calendar as soon as the strike is over or what will happen to the August schedule, but this is a quick answer to the strike. The fact that studios won’t listen to their writers and actors has put them in a position where the people who promote them can’t. This means that they either have to put out movies without the actors there to promote them or delay the movie release until they can talk through these contracts.
Some movies are still being made. Some projects and some A24 movies have been able to keep going because SAG-AFTRA has let them, so, interestingly, A24 is pushing back this release date. The plan was for Torres to do Q&As for the movie all over the country in a slow spread. But after a successful debut at SXSW, the movie became famous with people who liked other A24 films and Torres as an actor. Still, since Torres won’t be able to promote the movie, it makes sense to put it off.
Just the Beginning
Some big movies, like Barbie and Oppenheimer, had already gotten a lot of press before the strike was called. This means that the marketing side will start pushing back these release dates. Many studios have movies coming out, but with Problemista being pushed back to September and movies like Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers being pushed back to 2024, it’s clear that we’re in for many changes that will cost the studios a lot of money. Since they don’t seem to want to listen to the WGA or SAG-AFTRA, it looks like we’ll also be getting a lot more of these warnings in the future. We don’t know when Problemista will be out, so we’ll have to keep supporting SAG-AFTRA and the WGA until then.
