Call for quick end to Hollywood strike as production of film in Belfast delayed

The head of Northern Ireland Screen has called for a quick and equitable end to the strike by Hollywood writers and actors as a large film production in Belfast has had to be delayed.

Richard Williams, chief executive of Northern Ireland Screen, said the strike was causing a “global shutdown” of the film industry.

Northern Ireland Screen has invested £2 million in the live action adaptation of the DreamWorks animated movie How To Train Your Dragon.

The film was due to start production in Titanic Studios Belfast but will now be delayed due to strike action in Hollywood.

The actors’ union Sag-Aftra (Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) is currently engaged in the largest industry strike for 60 years.

Hollywood actors have been pictured on picket lines outside major studios, including Warner Bros, Disney, Paramount and Netflix.

Mr Williams said the strike action in the US was impacting production in Northern Ireland.

“This is a global shutdown, and once it was announced that there was a SAG strike, it was inevitable that How To Train Your Dragon would be put on pause and not come back again until that strike is resolved,” he told the BBC on Tuesday.

“And obviously, from our perspective, our hope was that it’s resolved as quickly and equitably as possible.”

Mr Williams said that the strike impact in film production across the world meant that it would not have a disproportionate impact on the industry in Northern Ireland.

“The impact in the short term is very serious, but it is important to stress that the two things – one, it’s a global challenge so it’s a shutdown right across the world, and as soon as the SAG strike strike is over, How To Train Your Dragon will be up in production again,” he said.

However, Mr Williams did add that some positions on the large-scale production may not be able to be resumed after the strike.

“There’s no sugarcoating it. It’s a tough scenario, and a lot of freelancers were already either working on the project or expecting to in the coming weeks,” he said.

He added: “Facing into the reality of it, there are particular jobs in particular departments that really only work in significant numbers on the large projects. So they are likely to be waiting for the end of the SAG strike and are unlikely to pick up work on other projects.”

More than 116,000 actors in the US are now on strike, joining more than 11,000 members from the Writers Guild of America (WGA) who went on strike at the beginning of May.

It is the first time both unions have been on strike since 1960, when Sag-Aftra was led by former US president Ronald Reagan.