Last week, members of SAG-AFTRA, the union that represents actors in Hollywood, went on strike, joining the writers of the WGA on the picket lines. Both groups, in short, are hoping to secure better pay, increased job security, and regulations on the use of AI, among other things.
Whether they get it, we’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime, many productions have gone dark, including the second season of Netflix’s The Sandman, an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s seminal comic. The Sandman follows Dream, aka Morpheus, aka the Sandman, aka a lot of stuff, the immortal lord of dreams and sibling to the likes of Death, Destiny and Desire. It’s a heady story, but the Netflix show did a great job with it and left fans eager to see more.
We’ll be waiting for a while, as Gaiman himself took to BlueSky and broke the news: “SAG-AFTRA strike is on. Sandman has stopped shooting completely, along with everything else that was squeaking by without writers,” he said. “I hope that the AMPTP sees reason and gets back to the table with the actors and the writers. I have no reason at this point to think they will see reason.”
Neil Gaiman isn’t hopeful about The Sandman season 2 continuing filming anytime soon
The AMPTP, for reference, is the trade organization representing studios like Netflix in negotiations; and indeed, there’s little indication they’re willing to come to the table. Expect this strike to last a while.
That said, Gaiman isn’t entirely right that every show “that was squeaking by without writers” has stopped production. For instance, HBO is still filming the second season of its Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, since many of the actors on that show aren’t part of SAG and because it does a lot of filming in the UK, which has a different set of labor laws.
Filming on The Sandman season 2 had just started. Hopefully the studios make a fair deal with the striking writers and actors soon, so things can get back on track.
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h/t GamesRadar