The Hollywood Studios That Are Scared of Trump
Graham Williamson on the films being delayed thanks to studio fears about a potential Trump Presidency.
You might think that, after your Palme d'Or-winning film becomes the first foreign-language feature to win Best Picture at the Oscars, you can make anything you want for a follow-up. Yet Mickey 17, Bong Joon-ho's follow-up to the modern classic and worldwide hit Parasite, has faced repeated delays at Warner Bros. It's currently scheduled to come out in January 2025, ten months after its original release date, in a month that American studios usually reserve for dumping movies they have no faith in.
Officially, the reason for the delay is a combination of post-production and the knock-on effect of the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Unofficially, some have wondered if David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros Discovery, is looking to permanently shelve the film, as he has with three other near-complete films since he took over in 2021.
Yet there is a third option, one which points towards an unsettling future for Hollywood.
