As the Hollywood writers strike continues south of the border, its impact on film and television in Toronto could grow, the city’s film commissioner says.
Officials say that production in Toronto has not suffered particularly noticeably yet as a result of the strike, which has shut down shows in the United States, including Saturday Night Live.
Writers Guild of America’s units representing 11,500 writers in the United States announced on May 2 they would strike after failing to reach a new deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, marking Hollywood’s first writers’ strike in 15 years.
Negotiations between studios and the writers, which began in March, failed to reach a new contract before the writers’ current deal expired just after midnight, at 12:01 a.m. PDT on May 2.
All script writing was to immediately cease, the guild informed its members.
In Toronto, a host of major television shows are filmed, including productions based in the United States. Popular shows such as Amazon Prime’s The Boys, Netflix’s Umbrella Academy and Apple TV’s See have all been filmed in Toronto.
The city’s film commission said that a practice of writing scripts well in advance of filming for major shows should act as a buffer to the strike, giving Toronto some time before it really feels the effects of the industrial action.
“In the short term, we are seeing relatively little impact, as some US series ‘banked’ scripts for future episodes, and feature film scripts are typically completed well before production,” Toronto film commissioner Marguerite Pigott’s office said in a statement sent to Global News.
“Over time, if the strike is not resolved, we will see increasing impact with anticipated shows not going into production.”
The writers strike comes following a strong production year in Toronto.
The summer of 2022 saw tens of film and TV operations shooting at the same time, with both Hollywood and local Canadian creatives looked to make up for lost time during the pandemic.
In 2022, the film and television industry generated almost 46,000 jobs, either directly or as spin-offs. The sector was worth almost $3.2 billion in production, according to provincial body Ontario Creates.
A total of 419 projects were filmed in Ontario through 2022, Ontario Creates said.
When the writers strike is resolved, Toronto hopes to see another boom on-top of its post-COVID recovery.
“Once resolved, we anticipate a production boom, and our experience reopening as the pandemic receded has demonstrated Toronto can ably handle production surges,” Pigott’s statement said.
— with files from Global News’ Craig Lord and The Associated Press
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