The Aftermath : As Far as Films Go, Studios Say Walkout Hasn’t Hurt Production

Despite the five-month-long writers strike, moviegoers will have plenty of films to choose from next summer, producers and studio executives said Thursday.

Most of the major studios said the strike hasn’t affected the number of films they will release next year. Universal Pictures, for example, still plans to top this year’s schedule of 17 releases.

“Our schedule at Universal Pictures has not been affected,” said Thomas Pollock, chairman of the studio’s motion picture group. “We had planned for (the strike) ahead of time.”

“There’s going to be product out there and a lot of it,” said Sidney Ganis, Paramount Pictures’ president of worldwide marketing. Paramount’s planned blockbusters for next summer--”Star Trek V” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”--already are in production.

Likewise, Mike Medavoy, executive vice president of Orion Pictures, said he didn’t expect a major fallout from the strike. While Orion faced some delays in production, he noted, the strike hasn’t reduced the number of films the studios plans to release next year.

The optimism among film makers contrasts sharply with the mood of television producers, who are scrambling to salvage their fall season. “There is such flexibility in the post-production time in films,” said Joe Roth, co-owner of Morgan Creek Productions. “That’s not the case in television.”

Another reason that moviegoers won’t be affected is that studio executives had been prepared for a lengthy strike. Some studios accelerated production of films that were in development and stockpiled movie scripts.

After a settlement is made official with the union’s ratification vote, Hollywood insiders expect writers to turn in reams of scripts they had been working on during the past 22 weeks, despite union rules against professional writing during a strike. The difference now may be that there is less time to rewrite those screenplays before they go into production.

Production on many films, however, was delayed by the strike. Morgan Creek Productions and its co-producer, Interscope, had originally planned to begin filming the action-adventure film “Lakota,” starring Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips, at the end of August.

During the writers’ strike, they moved that production date back to Sept. 19. If the writers guild ratifies the settlement, they’ll just barely make that start date. “We’ll get in right under the wire,” Roth said.

At Castle Rock Entertainment, screenwriter William Goldman had to postpone work on “Misery,” an adaptation of a Stephen King novel. “We could have started (production) by the end of this year,” said Martin Shafer, a partner in the production company. He added that the start date will now be sometime early next year.

Moviegoers won’t notice those kinds of delays in a market that is already glutted with major films, Roth said.

This summer alone, film makers will release at least 41 major movies, according to Phil Garfinkle, senior vice president of Entertainment Data Inc. If that number drops off by, say, five to eight films, Garfinkle said exhibitors won’t suffer.

“If we go down to 25, then there’s a problem,” he added. “On the other hand, if studios released only 20, but they were all like ‘Big’ (or other hit movies), there would be plenty of business to go around.”

Shafer predicted fewer films next year, but for a different reason, attributing that projection to financial troubles plaguing smaller studios such as New World Pictures and the current turmoil at MGM / UA.