PARIS, July 10 (UPI) -- Striking French show business workers have halted filming of a Jack Nicholson movie and closed the famed Avignon Festival.
On the second day of the protest over unemployment benefits, Nicholson tried to persuade strikers not to halt the shoot of the Columbia picture at a bridge in Paris early Wednesday, Daily Variety reported.
Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves also star in the untitled romantic comedy, directed by Nancy Meyers, which was scheduled to shoot in Paris earlier this year but was delayed due to the war in Iraq.
Desperate organizers have pulled the plug on several festivals -- the Francofolies music festival in western France was the latest to be canceled Wednesday -- while the fate of Avignon's famed theater festival, France's top summer event, still hangs in the balance. No plays have been staged in its first two days.
