Nicolas Cage will skip the Fantasia Film Festival due to the SAG-AFTRA strike

PTI

Hollywood star Nicolas Cage will not attend the Fantasia Film Festival following the strike called by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists. (SAG-AFTRA). Cage was due to attend the festival in Montreal, Canada, on July 22 for the world premiere of director Yuval Adler’s Sympathy for the Devil. He was also scheduled to receive Fantasia’s Cheval Noir career achievement award.

Last week, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted to team up with the screenwriters under the Writers Guild of America (WGA) in the first joint strike after failing to reach a consensus for a new contract with the studios and streaming services, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).

Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Florence Pugh—the cast of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer—left the film’s London screening midway in solidarity with the strike called by Hollywood’s actors union. Recently, actors Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney and Priyanka Chopra Jonas voiced their support for their protesting colleagues. The strike by Hollywood actors is the first since 1980. It is also the first instance in which two major Hollywood unions have been on strike at the same time since 1960.

Members of the WGA have been protesting since early May, demanding better wages, a higher minimum wage, more writers per show, and shorter exclusive contracts, among other things.

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