STRIKE action has forced the biopic of ex-boxing champ Prince Naseem to be put on ice just before filming.
I can reveal a walkout by the Writers Guild of America and potential action by the Screen Actors Guild means the project cannot go ahead.
The film, called Giant, was to have starred Mena Massoud as former world featherweight champion Naseem Hamed and Paddy Considine as his trainer Brendan ingle.
A TV insider said: “There’s the WGA strike and the impending SAG strike.
“Until they know what is going on with that, they’re finding a lot of financiers, including the ones on this film, are unwilling to keep going. It is on an indefinite hiatus until it’s known what’s happening.
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“It was going to start last month.
“Now the earliest to expect it to restart is September time, just to be able to look at it again, and then there is prep.
“The hope is it will restart this year but the whole industry is now waiting to hear from the Screen Actors Guild.”
Strike action, or the threat of it, has sent ripples across the industry and had implications on a number of film and TV projects.
The Prince Naseem biopic would have chronicled his rags-to-riches story as the son of Yemeni immigrants who was born and raised in Sheffield.
Naz won 36 out of his 37 fights between 1992 and 2002, and held multiple featherweight belts.
The flashy fighter is considered to be one of the greatest British boxers of all time.
He once entered the ring on a flying carpet and also re-enacted the Michael Jackson Thriller video.
It is why retelling his story and the stormy relationship with his late trainer was such a tantalising prospect.
Signing up Hollywood actor Mena, who has starred in the movie Aladdin as well as Prime Video’s Jack Ryan, was seen as something of a coup for the creators.
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Let’s hope this doesn’t turn out to be a knockout blow for the drama.
JODIE'S TIME FOR CHANGE
JODIE Whittaker looks worlds away from Doctor Who as she swaps the Tardis for a life behind bars.
She is seen as inmate Orla in this first peek at the second series of gritty BBC prison drama Time.
It is the follow-up to writer Jimmy McGovern's 2021 three-parter starring Sean Bean.
With a new cast and storyline, the mini series also features The Last Of Us star Bella Ramsey, The Silent Twins’ Tamara Lawrance and Downton Abbey actress Siobhan Finneran.
The three play inmates thrown together in Carlingford Prison.
Bafta-winner Sophie Willan joins the cast alongside Waterloo Road star Alicia Forde and Being Eileen’s Julie Graham.
Time will be returning to BBC One and iPlayer later this year.
