Days Cast Released From Contracts, NBC Set to Go on Indefinite Hiatus
NBC soap opera announcement shocker, the reason behind production ceasing at the end of November doesn’t mean the show is over.
Soaps.com has learned that the entire cast of Days of our Lives has been released from their contracts by the producers in order to cut costs of their production and get back to a more traditional schedule of shooting 2 months in advance rather than the current 8 months schedule they’ve been on. A report from TVLine stressed that Days of our Lives has not been canceled, but the move comes as NBC and Sony Pictures Television prepare to negotiate to renew the daytime series. The NBC soap opera, which premiered on November 8, 1965, and just celebrated its 54th anniversary, will halt production at the end of this month, but because it shoots eight months in advance, the show will have enough episodes to air through September 2020.
Should Days of our Lives be renewed, as hoped, new contracts would be negotiated with the actors, who sign their deals with Corday Productions rather than Sony, and taping would resume in March 2020 with them taping two months in advance. Of course, there is a risk that certain actors would go on to other projects in the meantime and not be available at the time new contracts are offered, which could result in characters no longer being on canvas or significant recasts required to fill roles. This news comes amid the Days of our Lives time jump, which saw characters shift ahead one year, with episodes using flashbacks to fill in the blanks.
At the recent Day of Days event, actors spoke about challenges for the cast and crew as they enthused about the never-before-done-in-daytime twist that provided an opportunity to bring back characters that had been off-canvas, such as Chad DiMera (Billy Flynn) and Abigail Deveraux (Kate Mansi) and reset existing characters’ storylines and circumstances.
Soaps.com will keep readers updated as to the status of the Days of our Lives cast and renewal negotiations.
We’re not being cancelled. We are pausing production because we are so far ahead of schedule (and it saves us $). Days will still air during the entire hiatus, so you won’t miss anything!
— Chandler Massey (@ChandlerMassey) November 12, 2019
