Neil Gaiman Joins WGA Strike; Will This Affect The Sandman Season 2?
It might, but not fatally.
The new WGA strike, which began just yesterday, is on the news, and everyone guesses who among the big names is going to join it and how that's going to affect various projects. As the Writers Guild of America failed to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Producers about the residuals from streaming media, its members overwhelmingly voted to go on strike, repeating the great WGA strike of 2007–2008.
It seems that the majority of writers are going to support the strike, so a number of productions, including a long list of daily and weekly talk shows, have already shut down for the time being. The UK and Canada Writers Guilds also are supporting the strike and have warned their members against working on American productions, so finding replacement writers won't be easy.
Now it has also become known that Neil Gaiman is joining the strike, and fans are wondering — what does this mean for the second season of The Sandman?
Well, the scripts for Season 2 have already been finished, so the strike is not going to completely disrupt the production process. However, Gaiman's participation in the strike will likely cause him to quit various pre-production tasks, which may bring about delays.
The extent of these delays is hard to estimate because we don't know how much involvement was expected on his behalf, besides simply providing the scripts. And of course, Neil doesn't have to be involved in marketing and promotion for the season.
All in all, it doesn't look like The Sandman Season 2 is going to be canceled and will most likely be released as planned, or with relatively modest delays. The same goes for a lot of scripted shows, if only because the strike was not sudden and the companies have been stockpiling scripts in preparation. What is going to happen with these shows in the longer term is much more difficult to predict.
In the case of Neil Gaiman, his fans may at least see a silver lining in this whole strike affair — perhaps he will now have time to write another book or finish his Miracleman comic book series.