Unless you’ve been living under a rock this summer, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the strike going on in Hollywood. The strike started on May 2nd, 2023, when the Writers Guild of America went on strike over an ongoing labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. In order to support the writers in their strike, the American actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, went on strike on July 14th. With this strike, not only are actors not filming any projects in solidarity, they are also not allowed to promote any of the projects they have already filmed. They are not doing any press, premieres, interviews, or any other type of publicity for the projects they have already filmed.
This has led to films getting creative in terms of promotional content, seeing as they cannot have their actors promote the film in the usual ways. One film that has been impacted by this is, Red, White & Royal Blue, directed by Matthew Lopez, starring Taylor Zakhar-Perez and Nicholas Galitzine.
In this movie, Alex Claremont-Diaz, the first son of the United States, falls in love with Henry, the Prince of England. The story follows their secret relationship and all the complications that come with the two of them falling in love. The movie is based on the book by the same name, written by Casey McQuiston.
With the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, this film has had to find new ways to promote it without getting the actors involved.
Luckily, during the filming of the movie, which happened from June to August of 2022, the cast had managed to film some interviews that they had been able to release during these last few weeks. All of these videos are marked with some variation of “this was recorded prior to the SAG-AFTRA strike,” although it’s obvious it was pre-recorded judging on how Galitzine’s hair is still dyed blonde in the clips. There’s a fifteen-minute interview with Galitzine and Zakhar-Perez by Cine-Magna – Movies Behind The Scenes. There was another five-minute interview by iHollywoodTV. Those were all filmed during the production of the movie.
Along with that, Galitzine and Zakhar-Perez were able to get in an interview with GQ before the strike started, along with a friendship quiz video. Not long after these were released, the strike started, and the actors could no longer participate in press for the film.
Hopefully, more pre-recorded videos of the cast will be coming out in the future. Even if there aren’t, at least we have these and the interviews being done by Matthew Lopez, who is still allowed to do press for the film as the director. He has done interviews with People Magazine, Yahoo News UK, Out Magazine, Gay Times, Hindustan Times, and Broadway World, just to name a few.
Going beyond that, there is an official Instagram account and an official Twitter (or is it called X now?) account for the film. These official accounts have been posting short videos of the cast from when they filmed the movie, such as this video with Zakhar-Perez and Galitzine or this video with Rachel Hilson and Malcolm Atobrah where the cast members talked about their favorite scenes to film. It is also noted in these short clips that they were previously recorded.
The official accounts for the film are also used to post clips from the movie itself. Not only is there a trailer for the film, but there are a lot of small clips that have been posted to get people’s attention. One of these clips is of Zahra, the President’s Deputy Chief of Staff, finding out about Alex and Henry. Another clip that has been released is of Alex and Henry doing damage control after toppling a $75,000 cake and Henry’s brother’s wedding.
The people creating these promo videos for this movie have gotten creative with these small videos, allowing the movie to speak for itself. They created videos introducing the First Family and the Royal Family, as well as created posters to introduce the two main characters of the movie, Alex and Henry. They’ve created fun videos, such as “Falling for your rival (Alex’s Version)” and “Falling for your rival (Henry’s Version).” They’ve also posted many still images from the film, such as the ones in this post or the ones in this one. There are plenty of them being posted by the official accounts for the film.
Now to talk about one of my favorite things they have done to promote this film. They’ve created Instagram accounts for Alex (@theagcd) and Henry (@princehenryuk), who post photos as if the characters were actually real – and I wish they were. I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in a world where Ellen Claremont is President and where the first son is dating the prince? These Instagram accounts have given a personality to the characters before the movie has even come out. Through this, these characters have transcended the film world and have made their way into the real world through social media. Alex and Henry post about their families, their friends, and the little things in life. Just like any other real people, they also have close friend stories where they post about random things – mostly each other.
I happen to be one of the lucky people who has made it onto Prince Henry’s close friends’ story. I have no idea how, but somehow I’ve been put on it. (I’m still working on trying to get onto Alex’s close friends’ story).
Speaking of close friends’ stories, the official Red, White & Royal Blue film’s Instagram account also has a close friends’ story. This account’s close friends’ story is to post exclusive content for the film, whereas Alex and Henry’s are used to create more personality for the characters and invite us into their world. All of the content posted on these private close friends’ stories are trending on Twitter (X?) by the end of the day, so everyone gets access to it even without being on the stories.
To wrap up this brief summary about how they have gotten creative with promoting this film during the strike, we should talk about the screenings they have done for the fans. Since they cannot do red carpet premieres for the film, they have decided to have fan premieres in London, New York, and Los Angeles. Lucky fans are invited to these premieres to view the film early. These fans would then flood to social media to gush about the film – without sharing any spoilers – to generate interest in the film. Along with the fans, magazines and other publications would be invited to the viewings so that they could write reviews about the film prior to its release.
Long story short, they have gotten creative with ways to promote Red, White & Royal Blue during the SAG-AFTRA strike. I strongly recommend checking out all of the promo I’ve linked for this film, and I also strongly recommend heading over to Prime Video to watch Alex and Henry’s love story come to life. I have no doubt that you will see this movie for how amazing it is.