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Anticipating prolonged strikes by both actors and screenwriters, the film industry earlier this year kicked into hurry-up mode, finishing an unprecedented number of movies before the mid-year deadline for contract renewals.

The strikes were settled before they began, leaving the industry with a surplus of unreleased films. That would not have been a problem had the terrorist attacks of September 11 not occurred. But they did, and Hollywood quickly scrambled to reshuffle its release schedule, pulling from circulation anything deemed too violent or of questionable taste during a national crisis. Miramax Films' Gangs of New York and Warner Brothers' Collateral Damage were delayed until next year for just this reason.

The result: a backlog of films awaiting release, and a slowdown in production. Many films that would have appeared this fall have been postponed until next year, according to reports appearing in the Hollywood Reporter, the LA Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The production slowdown means that studios are being more selective about which projects they pick up for development, and directors, actors, and technical specialists are in much less demand than they were just two years ago. Screenwriters are still making deals, however, because their end of project development is far less dependent on outside economic factors. Studios still need to plan for the long term. The short term, however, will consist of slim pickings for many in the industry. Production is down to approximately one-third of last year's level, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

For now, the generally recession-proof entertainment industry finds itself in an unusually slow phase of its business cycle. "Some studios already have enough nearly finished movies that they only need one or two more to complete 2002 schedules," reported Bruce Orwall and John Lippman of the Wall Street Journal on October 16, 2001. The situation may actually boost the financial picture for many studios by cutting short-term costs, they noted.

It may also make movie fans happy early next year, because the deluge of new films that typically occurs during the winter holiday season will continue until early spring. Among the releases scheduled for January 2002 are Fox's Behind Enemy Lines, MGM's Killing Me Softly, Sony Picture Entertainment's Slackers, and Warner Brothers' Pluto Nash.