This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Shai-Hulud, Kraven the Hunter, and the Ghostbusters are an odd group to have something in common, but they do: All three are the stars of movies that have been moved to 2024. Warner Bros. has moved their big dusty sequel from this fall to March 15, 2024. Does Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) need to worry about the Ides of March?
Dune 2 steals that date from Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which gets bumped down the road to April 12, 2024.
As Variety succinctly explains, “Due to the SAG-AFTRA strike, actors may not do press for any struck films, which would have meant the star-studded Dune cast would not have been on the press circuit for the big-budget film.” Along with Chalamet, that cast includes Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Josh Brolin, Christopher Walken, Rebecca Ferguson, Lea Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, and many more.
Last month, Sony bumped Kraven the Hunter and the untitled Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel to next spring—and took Spider-Man: Beyond the Spiderverse off the release calendar entirely. The Spiderverse sequel had been set for March 2024 but now is in premiere limbo. Variety notes that Warner Bros. was considering moving other films off its fall calendar, but at least for now, The Color Purple (December 25) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (December 20) are staying put.
It remains to be seen whether any other studios will move their upcoming releases—or whether the issues that led to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes will be resolved.
Until then, you can always re-read Dune again.
