Most of the 2008 event movies -- titles like "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and the big-screen version of "Sex and the City" -- are expected to roll without problem into the theaters next summer. Sources say "Star Trek," which is slated for Christmas 2009, will take off as planned and start filming next month.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has writers trying to beat the strike deadline for both "G-Force" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic," the big-screen adaptation of the Sophie Kinsella bestseller. Of "Shopaholic" he says, "the writer should be done in the next [few] days." Conversely, Bruckheimer has decided to wait until the labor unrest is completely resolved to begin shooting his next juggernaut, "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time," based on the popular video game.
Like many writers, Billy Ray says he's just keeping his head down and writing as fast as he can. "I take my children to school in the morning, I'm at my desk by 9, somebody feeds me at 1, I'm usually back at my desk at 1:30 and write to 5. The only difference is now I'm generally writing until 7." Just because he's productive doesn't mean Ray's not worried. "This strike would be such a total calamity for everybody involved," he said.
Indeed, there is a palpable fear around town that even if the strike is averted or short-lived there will be a replay of 2001, when, due to a threatened writers strike, the studios jammed sub-quality films into production, just so the pipelines would stay filled.
"Next year, there's going to be a plethora of bad movies -- movies that were rushed because of the supposed strike," said producer Todd Black, who has two films in pre-production at Columbia: "Seven Pounds," a romantic drama starring Will Smith, and a remake of the crime thriller "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" starring Denzel Washington. Black insists that there's going to be "no rushing" on his movies. "I don't want to make bad movies. And whatever is going to happen is going to happen."
Still, whatever the outcome, October 2007 will go down in movie history as either one of the most productive months in recent memory or the most stress-provoking.
"Unfortunately, it's part of our business," Bruckheimer said. "I lived through the last one, which lasted for almost six months. You somehow survive through it. It hurts the business. It hurts the writers more. Whatever they gain, they never get back the time they're down."
rachel.abramowitz @latimes.com
robert.welkos@latimes.com
Jay A. Fernandez, John Horn, Chris Lee and Gina Piccalo contributed to this story.
