While some producers are making contingency plans for a strike, others in the business believe a last-minute contract agreement will be reached: "The cost of having a strike, even a short one, will cost more to the studios than what the union is asking for.".

Unless an agreement in these areas — as well as issues including minimum wages for the union’s lowest-paid workers and benefits (an area where talks were reportedly making progress) — is reached with the AMPTP this weekend, about 60,000 film and TV workers will go on strike Monday at 12:01 a.m.

Negotiations are expected to continue until a tentative agreement is reached or the strike deadline met.

Following news of the tentative strike date announced Wednesday, the encroaching deadline was on crew members’ minds, including at The Harder They Fall premiere in Los Angeles.

Two producers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were making early contingency plans in the event of a strike: “We are trying to see how long we can go without doing anything drastic,” one said.

Two separate studio insiders said that internally companies believe a strike is possible, but that if it happens, it’s expected to be short

“The cost of having a strike, even a short one, will cost more to the studios than what the union is asking for,” they said