As the writers strike still looms (perhaps that is what the whysoserious.com candle is counting down to) the L.A. Times points out that several films are in a rush to get get scripts and rewrites completed.

The article quotes Akiva Goldsman saying, "It's pencil down until midnight on Halloween
," as he finishes his draft of the Da Vinci Code follow-up Angels & Demons for Ron Howard and Columbia Pictures. However, that is not the only high-profile feature under the gun as several more are included in the Halloween rush.

Other
films included in the rush are G.I. Joe (Stuart Beattie is rewriting), Night at the Museum 2 (Scott Frank and director Shawn Levy are working on it), State of Play (Billy Ray is now taking a stab at the Pitt and Norton starrer), James Bond 22 (Haggis is finishing his polish), Four Christmases and even X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

With all this talk I am happy to hear one person say the obvious, "Next year, there's going to be a plethora of bad movies — movies that were rushed because of the supposed strike," said producer Todd Black, who has two films in pre-production at Columbia: Seven Pounds, a romantic drama starring Will Smith, and a remake of the crime thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three starring Denzel Washington. Black insists that there's going to be "no rushing" on his movies. "I don't want to make bad movies. And whatever is going to happen is going to happen."

The way I see it, is that 2009 is going to be a rough year for films, that is if this strike actually ends up happening, which it continues to look like it will it will happen. Here are a few more choice quotes from the article:

"Everybody is living in the impending doom." – Akiva Goldsman (Angels & Demons)

"People are freaking," said one top literary agent.

"[Our] writers on every project are working under inhuman amounts of pressure." – Lorenzo di Bonaventura (producer of G.I. Joe)

"This strike would be such a total calamity for everybody involved." – Billy Ray (re-writing State of Play)

"You somehow survive through it. It hurts the business. It hurts the writers more. Whatever they gain, they never get back the time they're down." – Jerry Bruckheimer (you know him)

To read the complete article click here.