Strikes! Camera! No action – how the writers’ strike changed Hollywood forever

The identity of Tom Hanks has been stolen by a deep fake, robots are coming for ‘red carpet’ jobs and it could even be curtains for the Oscars as we know it. The writers’ strike may be over, says film critic and producer Jason Solomons as the London Film Festival opens, but the drama is still playing out on our screens

From L-R: Penn Badgley, Hilary Duff, Jeremy Allen White and Jennifer Garner have all been on the picket lines during the SAG-Aftra strike (Getty/iStock)

Imagine the scene. A Hollywood evening heavy with traffic and anticipation. Lucky ticket holders craning their necks on the bleachers. TV presenters readying their mics and the world’s photographers checking their camera batteries as they wobble on their stepladders in excited expectation. A limo pulls up and, after all the fittings and grooming, its passenger steps out with their bravest smile on to face the frenzy... only to be met with a collective sigh of: “Nobody.”

Unless Hollywood gets back to work making movies, it’s what could happen in March – an Oscars with no stars, a red carpet with no stardust. Sure there will be the odd director you might have heard of, or even recognise (Martin Scorsese, Greta Gerwig and... is that Christopher Nolan?) but a struck Oscars would be nothing short of a disaster. Frankly, it wouldn’t be the Oscars at all.

We might not get there. But after a distinctly unstarry season of festivals such as Venice and Toronto, and a London Film Festival kicking off this Wednesday (4 October), it’s possible. The good news is that striking actors are back at the tables. Not the roundtable interviews so prevalent at this time of year, but the negotiating tables, given fresh impetus by last week’s resolution of the Hollywood writers’ strike after 146 days of picket lines and protest.