As reported in Variety, Universal Pictures has decided it “will not spend money for the rest of the year to advance development projects. Essentially, if your project isn’t being fast tracked or green lit, you won’t be able to spend money to move the project forward until 2010.” [Variety]
And while a Universal insider apparently debunked the claim of frozen development, declaring rather a “solidified 2010 slate,” the news is rather surprisingly considering it is still only September.
At a time when deals alone are hard to land, the complete absence of future deals not already planned for 2010 at one of the major Hollywood studios looks rather grim. Studios are now making far less movies for as much money as possible (i.e. tentpole releases). According to the Variety article, writers are now paid, post-strike, “a fraction” of what they once were.
What do you think of this news?