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Actors' strike threat casts shadow over Oscars Web posted at: 12/14/2008 Source ::: Reuters LOS ANGELES: Even as Oscar organizers on Friday unveiled Hugh Jackman as the host of their gala film awards, the prospect of a US actors' strike was casting a long shadow over whether Hollywood's big show would go on as usual. The Academy Awards' February 22 date puts it directly in the path of a potential walkout by Screen Actors Guild members who vote next month on whether to give union leaders permission to call a strike in stalemated contract talks with major studios. Movie making by the big studios has wound down since late June in anticipation of labor strife, compounding a general slowdown from the US recession. The tension has only been heightened by fatigue from a tumultuous 14-week Hollywood writers strike that ended in February and cost the Los Angeles area economy around $3bl as production stopped on most prime-time TV shows. A strike, if one occurred, would be nothing short of horrible, said Ron Howard, the former actor and Oscar-winning director of "A Beautiful Mind" whose latest film, "Frost/Nixon," is considered a strong Oscar contender. The timing couldn't be worse, he said on Thursday. Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who on Thursday earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work in "Revolutionary Road," said strike concerns are hitting everyone. It s really important that we come up with a solution, he said. These are unheard-of times, and no one can predict what is going to happen with the US economy. The Oscars, given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, are annually Hollywood s glitziest night. Putting the show in jeopardy, however, was this week s announcement by SAG that strike authorization ballots will be mailed to its 120,000 members on January 2 and tallied on January 23, a full month before the Oscars. That sequence of events raises the prospect of A-list stars boycotting the honors to avoid crossing their own union s picket lines - or even carrying picket signs themselves. The same dynamic came into play last January when a work stoppage by 10,500 Writers Guild of America members threw the awards season into disarray and caused the star-filled Golden Globe Awards to be replaced by a news conference. Only 5.8m TV viewers tuned-in, far below the Globes' typical 20m audience. Broadcaster NBC lost an estimated $10m to $15m in advertising revenue.
