The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, also known as SAG-AFTRA is an organization that represents 160,000 actors, dancers, writers, and many other media professionals. The SAG-AFTRA strike started on July 14, 2023 and still continues to this day worldwide. The goal of the SAG-AFTRA strike is to negotiate the best working conditions and wages for all media professionals involved.

The Writers Guild of America, also known as WGA represents over 11,000 screenwriters, and also recently went on strike. Similarly to the SAG-AFTRA strike, WGA also demanded higher pay for all the writers involved. 

Due to the ongoing strikes, many show and movie productions have been delayed. The strikes have managed to shut down and delay hundreds of movies in Hollywood. Many highly anticipated movies such as Dune: Part Two, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife are now set to release multiple months later than the original release date.

Not only is this affecting highly anticipated movies, but it’s affecting shows that have been wrapped up months ago that won’t be set to release until next year. “I have been affected by the WGA strike specifically, because [of] my favorite show, The Boys. I’m waiting for season four,” says Kelly Meeder, a senior at Santa Barbara High School, “they wrapped filming in April of this year, and they’re saying that because of the WGA strikes going on, they postponed the season’s release date until mid to late 2024. I will be in college before season four of the show comes out and they finished filming when I was in my junior year.”

Before these strikes, many people were not aware of the unfair working conditions that screenwriters, actors and other professions experience in their jobs. Although the strikes are negatively affecting and postponing the release dates and quality of the movies and shows at this time, it will have nothing but a positive effect on the workers and viewers in the future.