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The 2007 writers’ strike was a debacle for these movies: this is how it affected James Bond, Wolverine, Goku and more

They are the last monkeys in the industry, the ones that earn the least and the ones that take all the blows… but, when they are missing, the mystery trembles. Something that Hollywood could remember due to the current writers strike, but that already became clear 16 years ago.

The writers Strike 2007, Motivated (among other reasons) by the rise of the DVD in the domestic format, it shook the industry where it hurts the most: in the pocket. Something due to how it made itself felt in some great franchises that, at that time, were beginning to be the backbone of American cinema.

Seconded by about 12,000 people, and with a duration of three months and eight days that stoppage turned promising films into gibberish without rhyme or reason, and made other films that looked much worse come to the screens turned into authentic hoaxes that people tried to forget as soon as possible. Fortunately or unfortunately, we are here to remember them…

‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’

Not even Chris Claremont could have imagined the succession of misfortunes that befell this prequel in which Hugh Jackman he was reliving the past of the clawed mutant. According to rumors, the script of Gavin Hood and David Benioff (one of the future creators of Game of Thrones) It wasn’t even finished when the film hit the sets, so fox he needed to extend the shooting schedule to compensate for the thousand and one last-minute rewrites.

As if this were not enough, come 2009, an unfinished copy of the film was leaked on the internet, reaching four and a half million downloads in record time. so though X-Men Origins: Wolverine reached a respectable box office, it took away the studio’s desire to produce more spin-offs about the universe of the X Men. By now, its most enduring consequence is having introduced us to ryan reynolds In the role of deadpool.

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’

Michael Bay writing a script? Is that possible? Well yes, and the sequel to his toy mega-success with giant robots proves it with results, yes, a bit in that way.

In 2007, when the writers’ strike began, the team made up of Alex Kurtzmann, Roberto Orci and ehren kruger he did not deliver a complete script, but a mere synopsis that Bay was forced to expand in preparation for filming. In the case of him, the filmmaker decided to make up for the lack of plot with explosions and cascoporro action, something that, as he ended up admitting, did not work. “It is terrible to shoot a film whose story was written in three weeks”, confessed in 2011.

‘Quantum of Solace’

In 2006, Royal Casino went down in history, not only as the best possible reboot for the saga of James Bond, but also as one of the best titles starring 007. So, imagine what it must have been like to go to the cinema two years later, looking forward to a reunion with the super agent Daniel Craig, to come across a film in which coherence and originality were neither there nor expected.

The production, which already began in itself complicated with the abandonment of the director Roger Michell, had his moment more jamesbondian when the scriptwriter paul haggis He delivered his script his part of the script two hours before the start of the 2007 strike.

Of course, the script itself left a lot to be desired, so Craig says he faced the most difficult mission of his career trying to make sense of it. “Only I was left, and I’m not a screenwriter”, he declared, noting that the filmmaker Marc Forster and he himself took it upon himself to mend the gibberish, taking advantage of a legal loophole that authorized them to rewrite the scenes. “We got out of trouble by the hair,” he stressed.

‘Terminator Salvation’

Today, the fourth film in the saga created by James Cameron is remembered, more than anything, for the tantrum of Christian bale against a camera operator. At the time, however, this prequel drew attention for its bad reviews… and for its gruesome production, strangled by the writers’ strike.

As in so many other cases, the script of john brancato and Michael Ferris it was a hastily written disaster before the start of the strike, which necessitated the appearance of an army of machines… sorry, of rewriters, among which stood out Jonathan Nolan. But the ‘hermanísimo’ of Christopher Nolan He was also in a hurry with deadlines, so he abandoned from one day to the next.

the script of Terminator Salvation he took so many turns that Alan Dean Foster he had to write his novelization from scratch at least twice to accommodate so much change. When the movie hit theaters, almost everyone thought the franchise had reached its nadir… until the release of Terminator: Genesis in 2015. With that movie, fans felt like scoring their own ‘Bale Out’.

‘G.I. Joe’

Another movie based on a toy franchise Hasbro… and another film whose script was written in haste to meet the deadlines set by the strike. Stuart Beattie, David Elliott and Paul Lovett, they worked under “inhuman pressure” to finish it on time, according to the producer Laurence Di Bonaventura.

Management’s complaints aside, the director stephen sommers He was, once again, in charge of filling in the gaps that he left in such a hurry in the script. At least the resulting film was more or less likeable, an excuse he could not use. G.I. Joe: Revenge, ill-fated sequel released in 2013.

‘Angels and Demons’

In 2006, when Tom Hanks and Ron Howard premiered The Da Vinci Code, the name of Dan Brown It was synonymous with millions at the box office. A few years later, however, the writer’s conspiracy novels were more discredited than the international career of Audrey Tautou, something that makes the measures of columbia pictures when the scriptwriter Akiva Goldsman joined the strike.

Rather than assemble a crisis team to fill out the script at full speed, the studio decided postpone shooting in order to have a complete script after the end of the strike. Which didn’t make any difference, basically because Brown’s literary material (already completely out of date when the film was released) was unspeakable from the start.

‘Star Trek’

During the 2007 strike, the rules of the Writers Guild of America They were the salvation for some films (which could take advantage of them to turn the situation in their favor), but also a nightmare for others. Something that JJ Abrams and Damon Lindeloff discovered while trying to bring their reboot from star trek where no one had ever been.

During filming, Lindelof and Abrams had many ideas to improve the original script of alex kurtzmann and Roberto Orci. But while neither was on the set as a writer (Abrams was directing, while Lindelof was producing), both were members of the WGA, so they couldn’t make those changes without looking like scabs. In the end, everything ended with a “could have been worse”.

‘Dragonball Evolution’

The unfortunate people who remember this disaster consider it one of the most disastrous products of the 2007 strike. And it is not for less, because the film by James Wong made with the creations of Akira Toriyama what a bunch of crazed Super Saiyans wanting to blow off some steam on a hungover morning.

Although the writing of the film would have been a mess, with the screenwriter Ben Ramsey signing one draft after another, the real effect of the strike had nothing to do with the script… but with the film itself getting to be shot. Because, with its most important projects threatened by the protest, sony he needed a movie to fill out his release schedule anyway. It is no wonder that even the amount of your budget remains in doubt.

Thus, dragonball evolution It has remained as one of the most regrettable films released by a major studio during the turn of the century. Come 2016, in a gesture that honors you, Ben Ramsey apologized for the script, acknowledging that he was short of money at the time and needed a job.

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