Deadpool 3, Gladiator 2, and More Could Begin Production Soon After Actors' Strike End

Productions that were already in the works, or those with finished scripts, are expected to rush back into production soon.

By Russ Burlingame

With the SAG-AFTRA strike now apparently resolved, Hollywood is headed back to work in earnest -- and that includes some hugely high profile projects that were put on hold when actors went on strike against the AMPTP over the summer. Some of those productions, like Deadpool 3, were almost done with principal photography when the strike started, while others -- think Ridley Scott's upcoming Gladiator sequel -- had not yet started production, but were ready to do so. With the 118-day actors strike now officially over, Deadline has a pretty good rundown of the state of some of the biggest productions in Hollywood.

The biggest complication is that most productions stop for the holidays. The studios dragged their feet on a deal for so long that many productions won't be able to get back in action until January -- which might have been a strategic move, since it takes those production expenses off the 2023 books and puts them into a year where movies will actually be coming out.

According to the Deadline report, a handful of movies are getting around the holiday issue...by being so close to done that they'll be ready to break again in December. That includes Deadpool 3, which was reportedly very close to completing principal photography when the strike started, as well as Beetlejuiice 2, which has just two days of shooting left. Clint Eastwood's next movie, Juror #2, has less than two weeks left as well. Other movies cited as coming back within the next couple of weeks are Gladiator 2 and Venom 3.

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"Obviously, we'd like to try to preserve a summer of films," Disney boss Robert Iger told Deadline. "The entire industry is focused on that. We don't have much time to do that."

In that same article, they quote an unnamed filmmaker with a big franchise project in the works as saying the studios are currently fixated on completing any movie that has hopes of being a hit, and released on time in 2024. The article also notes the upcoming Blake Lively movie It Ends With Us, based on Colleen Hoover's bestseller. Other big movies like Superman Legacy and Tron 3 are planning for their production to start in early 2024, allowing for Superman to hit its mid-2025 release date. It's likely that between movies stopped mid-production and movies that haven't started yet, 2025 is going to be a 2019-style year overstuffed with big releases.

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