SAG Strike: Gladiator 2 and Mortal Kombat 2 Prepare to Stop Filming

July 13, 2023

The looming SAG strike will cause numerous productions to shut down.

With the WGA strike and SAG strike set to happen at the same time, the movie industry will be heavily impacted. 160,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild will no longer be allowed to act in movies and TV until the strike is concluded. This affects movies like Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2, a sequel to the 2000 Russell Crowe film. The new movie was filming in Morocco and is set to star Paul Mescal, Denzel Washington, and Pedro Pascal.

Gladiator 2 isn’t the only movie that has been readying to pause production. Mortal Kombat 2, the sequel to the 2021 video game action movie, was filming in Australia and is also set to pause filming. Other films and shows have rushed to finish filming before the strike, such as Roland Emmerich’s gladiator series Those About to Die, starring Anthony Hopkins, and Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

SAG strike update

As the actors failed to reach a deal with the AMPTP, a strike is all but going to happen.

Jonathan Sim is a film critic and filmmaker born and raised in New York City. He is a member of the Critics Choice Association and Hollywood Creative Alliance, and has been featured in The Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, and Radio Times.

He has met/interviewed some of the leading figures in Hollywood, including Christopher Nolan, Zendaya, Liam Neeson, and Denis Villeneueve. He also works as a screenwriter, director, and producer on independent short films.