Michael Fleming and Dave McNary have a piece in Variety on SAG’s granting of waivers to independent productions allowing them to proceed with their shoots undeterred by the possible upcoming strike.

From the piece:

The stars and studios are nonetheless gearing up for the worst possible scenario. The current number of waivers is triple what SAG had signed three months ago — and an indication there will be a modicum of feature shooting in the coming months.

Even if there’s no SAG strike, the major studios will probably need a few months to slot in production starts, so indie projects will dominate activity in the late summer and early fall.

Some of the indie folk who have already taken advantage of SAG’s offer: Mel Gibson, Oliver Stone and Antoine Fuqua. Oh, and also Werner Herzog, who is apparently gearing up his Bad Lieutenant remake.