It's not quadrupled DVD residuals, regular cocaine rations and guaranteed work for all. However, the major studios' new concession to SAG — $10 million worth of new pay raises — is exactly what we thought might happen after SAG bludgeoned nearly 38% of AFTRA voters into opposing its primetime contract. The deal was…
It's time to break out your SAG vs AFTRA Celebrity Turf War Map™ for an update, albeit a bit of a confusing one: Robert De Niro is the latest star to come out in opposition of a SAG strike, asserting during a press conference Saturday at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival that Hollywood has suffered enough bloodshed…
Try as we might, there really is no fresh angle to report in the ongoing contract drama between SAG leadership and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers — the saber-rattling fuckers hate each other, and no strike-avoiding resolution is in sight before the current deal's June 30 expiration date.…
Happy news emerged this morning from the deep, dank reaches of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers headquarters, where it was announced the major studios have come to last-minute terms with AFTRA on a new three-year contract. Conveniently or not, the report comes a few hours before AFTRA's former…
After a week-long lull in apocalyptic mutterings from all sides of SAG and AFTRA negotiations with the major studios, a couple of new stumbling blocks have appeared en route to a deal. For starters, AFTRA national president Roberta Reardon today sent out a sobering e-mail to her members, both acknowledging her…
There's only so much ledge-prancing, saber-rattling, gun-pointing madness a person can get away with spinning in the press, and at a glance, anyway, it appears SAG national executive director Doug Allen may be faking the labor funk a little too aggressively. Now that his union's extended (and re-extended)…
More apocalyptic Hollywood strike talk is surfacing this morning, with Variety noting that little progress has been made in the ongoing contract negotiations between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Shocking! But with one week remaining on their clock before the compliant gang at AFTRA…
Last week ended with a jaw-dropping memo from the desks of Patric Verrone and Michael Winship, in which the WGA presidents stated their desire to see the "puny few" who elected financial core during the writers strike to be "held at arm's length" by the rest of the membership, adding, perhaps a tad indiscreetly,…
In what could charitably called a polite preemptive blast against SAG and AFTRA, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers yesterday issued an open letter affirming its rightful position in the driver's seat of upcoming negotiations with the recently split actors unions. "Driver's seat" is probably…
· Good news, advertisers, entertainment journalists, and fans of overblown montages of new shows that will likely be canceled before December: The upfronts are back on! The networks may continue them in some modified form, but it seems as if they're planning on maintaining the most crucial part of the tradition:…
Due to an arcane by-law in the WGA constitution, no strike can officially be called off until one the Guild's longest-tenured and most visible members appears on television to ritualistically recite the story of Lew Wasserman's Toilet, in which the legendary Hollywood mogul supposedly dismissed the idea of paying…
With word arriving over the weekend that Saturday night's WGA Scribeapalooza II: Let's Call the Whole Thing Off event at the Shrine Auditorium sent TV showrunners back to work today and will return everyone else to their jobs on Wednesday pending the outcome of a strike-ending vote to be counted tomorrow night,…
On this second day of the New Era of Cautious Optimism ushered in by Friday's "informal" bargaining session between Writers Guild negotiators and studio CEOs—when WGA West president Patric Verrone's repeated striking of Disney's Bob Iger with a foam EncounterBat™ led to a critical, tearful breakthrough on the…
In case you were too consumed with your Super Bowl preparations to scroll through the scores of "THE STRIKE IS OVER!!!" e-mails filling up your BlackBerry, various reports touting "progress" fueled by a breakthrough in Friday's informal deal-chat surfaced over the weekend, filling Hollywood with the kind of cautious…
· Don't look so put out by that dude who's not cool with your knocking-up, Jessica Alba. He's the one who's helping to pay for little Cash, Jrs. baby clothes.
· As long as she's got a bottle of wine and two other jilted lovers, Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn't need AMPTP and his lies.
· Christian Brando, Christopher…
Though widely vilified by those sympathetic to the WGA cause, AMPTP president Nick Counter has been doing groundbreaking work on behalf of the endangered Mountain Gorillas of Central Africa, embarking on a tireless quest to save the the species from extinction that often places him in grave danger. Shadowy blogspot…
How about some quick, late-afternoon strike news to break up the unpleasantness of today's dominant, thoroughly depressing story? OK then! In an e-mail blast to members, WGA West/East presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship say that they're happy to join in informal talks with the AMPTP, and that they've…
· The DGA, as you undoubtedly heard just moments after puffs of white smoke were belched skyward from the chimney of AMPTP headquarters, reached a deal with the studios yesterday. While anxious WGA members are picking over the proposed contract to see if any writer-screwing provisions have been hidden in the fine…
· Warner Brothers allows its options on the Justice League cast to lapse, putting the project on "indefinite hold," though the studio has assured its roster of mostly no-names that it still would eventually like to see what they all look like in their cute superhero costumes. [Variety]
· Like Monday's American Idol…
· NBC's Billy Bush-enhanced Reading of the Golden Globes Winners telecast draws just 5.8 million viewers, lower Nielsen numbers than even last week's public-access-quality People's Choice Awards delivered to CBS. Meanwhile, the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was huge for Fox. [THR]
· Shaking off…
