The second half of Denis Villeneuve's epic Dune adaptation has been moved its release date from November 3, 2023, all the way back to March 15, 2024, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It's the first major film release delay since the start of the ongoing TV/film industry worker strike; THR also notes that both Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and the LOTR spinoff War of the Rohirrim have also been bumped back.
But while those delays might be influenced by labor negotiations, they are hardly the fault of the striking workers. Rather, the delays are yet another example of the same Hollywood executive greed that has stalled negotiations with writers and actors in the first place, leaving those workers with no other choice but to strike. If money talks, and the executives refuse to talk in good faith with their workers because of money, then the only recourse is to withhold labor—and thus, money—from the bosses. That's the way it works. And the bosses and investors are the ones to blame.
In this particular case, the SAG-AFTRA strike guidelines prohibit actors not only from acting, but also from doing promotional work on behalf of the producers and studios (though they are technically still allowed to promote their own work as they see fit). As Gizmodo explains:
It emerged earlier this week that analyst sources for Hollywood studios speculate that they could stand to lose up to 15% of a movie's projected box office revenue by being unable to have actors participate in promotional coverage for releases—work explicitly prohibited by SAG-AFTRA's strike guidelines. You'd think that would convince them to do more than attempt to lecture either union into just accepting a deal that won't get them anywhere near the protections that they deserve. But I guess delaying a highly anticipated movie and then hoping you can get fans to blame the strikes rather than the studios themselves—in spite of overwhelming public support for said strikes—is an easier tactic, although much more likely to blow up in their faces.
So the reason you won't get to see Paul Atreides kick some Imperial ass is because executives are hoping to pocket an extra 15% by extracting more labor from their workers—few, if any, of whom would actually see any return of that 15% for themselves.
'Dune: Part Two' Delays Release to 2024 Amid Ongoing Actors Strike [Pamela McClintock and Aaron Couch / The Hollywood Reporter]
Dune 2 Has Been Delayed to 2024 [James Whitbrook / Gizmodo]
