Eragon and 11 other genre shows and movies shut down by the writers strike

The Writers Guild of America is currently on strike. That means thousands of Hollywood writers are no longer working, causing many shows and movies to halt production. Among other things, the writers want more competitive pay, increased job security, and limitations on the use of AI.

Latenight shows, which are often written on the day, have already gone dark. Series like Saturday Night Live, which records fresh every week, is on hiatus. As for scripted series, it’ll be a minute before we see delays, but if the strike isn’t resolved soon, delays are coming.

What sci-fi and fantasy shows and movies are being affected? Let’s run down some of the big ones.

Eragon

Last year, we learned that Disney+ was working on an adaptation of author Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle, about a young boy named Eragon who discovers a dragon egg. Naturally it hatches, and Eragon and his new dragon go on a quest to topple a fantasy tyrant.

The series is best known by the title of the first novel: Eragon, which was made into a movie in 2006. The chance to explore the whole story with a TV show is very exciting.

Unfortunately, there’s no movement on the show right now, not until the writers strike is resolved. That comes straight from Paolini, who gave fans an update on Twitter.

The Eragon show is likely in the very early stages of development. Scripts probably aren’t yet written, and obviously you can’t write scripts without writers. So here we are.

1923

Okay, let’s start with something that isn’t exactly sci-fi or fantasy but is still set in ye olden times, which is close enough: NBC Montana reports that 1923, a prequel to the hugely popular Yellowstone, has been “delayed indefinitely.”

With the original Yellowstone series in its final season, creator Taylor Sheridan is relaying on spinoffs to extend the universe. 1923 is set in…well, in 1923, and introduces us to a new generation of Duttons, namely patriarch Jacob (Harrison Ford) and matriarch Cara (Helen Mirren). Pandemics, drought, and Prohibition all plague the mountainous west that the Duttons call home.

The plan was for the second season of 1923 to wrap up the story, but with the writers strike ongoing, it’s not happening for the foreseeable future.

Daredevil: Born Again

Fans were crestfallen when Netflix cancelled the original Daredevil show. Now, Disney is bringing it back, complete with Charlie Cox back in the lead role of blind lawyer/superhero Matt Murdock.

The new Daredevil series will be 18 episodes long, which is lengthy for a Disney+ show. Unfortunately, we won’t be watching for awhile, as the strike has shut down production.

Production was interrupted by picketers before this, but so far as we know, that was temporary. But apparently Disney has decided that it’s not worth continuing to shoot while the writers are on strike. The sooner the strike resolves, the quickly this show gets back on the road.

The Penguin

Speaking of superheroes, Max is working on a spinoff of The Batman, which starred Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader. We don’t know if Pattinson will show up in this new series, but we know it’ll feature Colin Farrell as his nemesis the Penguin, buried under pounds of prosthetics and ready to take over the Gotham City underworld.

Or at least it will whenever the show comes out, which is further in the future than it would be had the production not shut down due to the writers strike. There’s no return date set for either of these shows as of yet. We’re just waiting on the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — the group representing the studios in the strike — to come to the table and negotiate.

The Mandalorian season 4

The latest news from Deadline is that while the fourth season of The Mandalorian was due to start filming in September, the writers’ strike is likely to delay production.

This is so despite the fact that the scripts for The Mandalorian season 4 are already finished. While directors and producers could proceed with filming, they wouldn’t have any writers on set, which means no fixes the scripts or rewrites. Disney may want to delay things rather than risk the harm that could do to the new episodes.

Stranger Things season 5

There are few shows bigger right now than Stranger Things, which started as a tribute to ’80s horror movies and has developed a dense mythology and rabid fandom all its own. The Netflix show is coming up on its fifth and final season, and anticipation couldn’t be at more of a fever pitch.

So some fans may be upset to hear that filming on season 5 won’t commence until after the writers strike is over. So said creators Matt and Ross Duffer on Twitter:

We didn’t know if Stranger Things season 5 had a firm start date for production, but various cast and crew members seemed to be gearing up for it, so odds are that it was due to start in the near future. And if the AMPTP reaches an agreement with the WGA soon, maybe they still can. If not, no more trips to Hawkins until the strike is over.

Severance season 2

One of the buzziest new shows of last year was Severance, an Apple TV+ drama about an office where workers don’t remember anything about their home lives when they’re on the job, and vice versa. The series got rave reviews from both critics and fans after its first season, so everyone wants more.

But unless the WGA and AMPTP come to an agreement, they’re not gonna get it, at least not for a while. While Severance is still filming its second season, Deadline reports that shooting was shut down as a result of picketing.

There are actually several shows like this, series that are technically filming but that have shut down at least temporarily due to picketing. They also include Evil on CBS and American Horror Story at FX.

In the case of Severance, things are even more interesting, because there were reports of delays even before the strike started. Word is that there are problems on set related to scrapped scripts and tension between showrunners, although producer and director Ben Stiller denied that anything was wrong…

…at least so far as those rumors were concerned. The production has definitely shut down thanks to the strike. If there is anything to the rumors, this can only make the issue worse.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight

HBO is currently working on two Game of Thrones prequel series: the first, House of the Dragon, already aired its first season to great acclaim in 2022. The second season of House of the Dragon was in the middle of shooting when the WGA called a strike. For better or worse, HBO has decided to keep shooting through the strike, reasoning that the scripts are all finished so they can go ahead without the writers. There are serious risks to that, but we’ll see how it works out for them.

HBO is also working on an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin’s Dunk and Egg novellas, about a knight and squire who roam Westeros some 90 years before the events of the original series. This one will be written by Ira Parker, who wrote on the first season of House of the Dragon. As Martin himself wrote on his blog, “Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines.”

That means that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is paused for now. Granted, the show wasn’t very far along. While House of the Dragon can theoretically still film new episodes that already have completed scripts, there likely weren’t even outlines produced yet for episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, so it’s a no-go for that show, at least not until the strike is resolved.

There are likely other shows in this situation. For instance, many fans are no doubt looking forward to the second season of The Last of Us on HBO. The first season wrapped up not too long ago, and while the writers are likely working on scripts for season 2, they weren’t done. They won’t return to that work until it’s over, which means proper production can’t begin.

Blade

Let’s switch over to movies for a second, because they’re affected by the writers strike too. One of the big-name movies feeling the burn is Blade, a Marvel film starring Mahershala Ali as the vampire-hunting half-vampire. This movie has undergone delays before, and Variety reports that it’s happening again. In this case, True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto was brought on to retool the screenplay for Blade mere weeks before the strike was called. He didn’t have time to finish his work, so Marvel has elected to delay shooting until the strike is over rather than go ahead with a script that isn’t ready.

This isn’t the case with all of its movies and shows. In fact, Marvel is very busy. Movies like Thunderbolts, Deadpool 3 and Captain America: New World Order, as well as TV shows like Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Wonder Man and Daredevil: Born Again are all either shooting or in pre-production, with no plans to stop.

That said, we mentioned above that production on Daredevil: Born Again was halted by picketers, which can happen to any of these shows and movies, particularly if they’re filming in studios located in entertainment hubs like Los Angeles or New York City. That’s one reason why shows like House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power may have an easier time filming through the strike, since they’re filming in far-flung areas and on locations where Hollywood writers may not have easy access.

Thunderbolts

Blade isn’t the Marvel movie being thrown out of whack. Deadline reports that Disney is delaying work on Thunderbolts — a team-up movie featuring antiheroes like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) — until the strike is over.

But when will that be? That’s probably up to the studios themselves. While they wait, more series and movies are affected:

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3

Finally, let’s look into the far future. There’s a new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds coming to Paramount+ on June 15; that’s already in the can. But Paramount was hoping to get a jump on things and film the third season, which was scheduled to go into production on May 2, literally the day the WGA called the strike. According to TrekCentral, filming has been delayed.

That said, the circumstances are a little different than usual. Given their druthers, Paramount might go forward with filming and just not have writers on set. However, Strange New Worlds films in Canada, where other film and TV unions stand in solidarity with the WGA. So there aren’t enough people on set to run a film crew.

That highlights how tricky and region-specific this can be. Star Trek fans will get to enjoy a new season of Strange New Worlds fans soon enough, but come next year they may wonder why the third season is taking so long.

There are other shows in this boat. For example, Amazon is readying a new season of The Wheel of Time to air later this year; it’s already shot. However, it’s also shooting a third season, and we’re not sure how the strike will affect that.

Blade Runner 2099

Lastly, Deadline reports that its upcoming live-action Blade Runner show — which is produced by original Blade Runner director Ridley Scott and set some 50 years after the sequel movie Blade Runner 2049 — will not start shooting at Northern Ireland’s Belfast Harbour Studios as planned; filming will get pushed back to as late as the spring of 2024, which is a good long time.

Northern Ireland Screen wasn’t happy about this.  “Northern Ireland Screen is extremely disappointed that Blade Runner 2099 is not going ahead at this time due to the ongoing writers’ strike,” they said in a statement. “The project has been prepping on the ground in Belfast for many months now. The WGA strike has been halting production all over the world and we hope a fair deal is reached soon so crew can get back to work.”

So say we all. Hopefully the AMPTP will come to a fair agreement with the WGA soon.

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