US filmmaker Wes Anderson says “people are suffering” as a result of the actors’ and writers’ strikes, and “an equitable deal has to be reached for anybody to go forward.”
Speaking at a press conference in Venice ahead of the world premiere of his short film The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, Anderson said, “I’m a member of both the Writers’ Guild and Directors’ Guild for 20 years. I can’t say that I have answers or real suggestions; I think an equitable deal has got to be reached for anybody to go forward. People are suffering.”
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) struck a new labour deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers at the end of June; while the writers’ strike hits its four-month mark tomorrow, and the actors’ strike reaches two months on September 14.
The DGA deal was easier to set, said Anderson. “The Directors Guild had different issues to solve; there are things that were facing the writers and actors in particular that really don’t apply to the directors. So I expect it was less challenging for them to make that deal. Somebody might tell me ‘You really don’t know what you’re talking about’, but that’s my impression.”
The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar has its world premiere on the Lido this afternoon (September 1); Anderson will represent the film without his key cast, which includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley.
The film is the first of several adaptations of Roald Dahl’s work from Anderson, who touched on the other short films he has coming up.
“There’s another one in the Henry Sugar collection called The Swan – we’ve done that one with Rupert Friend. We did a very old one called Poison which is one I always loved. Then we’ve also done a very strange one called The Ratcatcher, which is from a book called Claude’s Dog – it’s a peculiar story.”
The projects fall under Netflix’s acquisition of Dahl’s full catalogue in September 2021, with the first film since the acquisition being Matthew Warchus’ Roald Dahl’s Matilda! The Musical last year.
Anderson said he doesn’t have any plans for further Dahl adaptations; but has “a couple of things brewing” outside of his adaptations of the author. These include an original film project he is working on with Roman Coppola, on which he said “we’re starting with nothing”.
The Venice Film Festival runs until September 9.
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