Cruise’s United Arists Cutting Deal With WGA; AMPTP Less Than Pleased With Traitorous Studio

While his lawyer was fighting “sick and twisted” baby-fabrication stories this weekend, the fledgling mogul and longtime enforcer/righthand woman Paula Wagner were busy trying to reach a side-deal with the WGA that could be announced later today, one which would allow his United Artists studio to avail itself of the services of union scribes during the strike.

(The first order of business for any hired screenwriter: a major third-act revision that would set up a new, more upbeat ending for Third Reich downer drama Valkyrie where Cruise’s protagonist is successful in assassinating Hitler, reestablishing the fading action hero as a cinematic force so powerful he can even bend history to his will). Deadline Hollywood Daily has reported that the AMPTP is “furious” that Harry Sloan, head of UA parent-company MGM, could allow such a unity-undermining agreement to take place; by now, studio bogeyman Nick Counter has already unleashed the dark forces under his command to punish Sloan for his incompetence, hoping that word that the executive’s family has been devoured by a pack of three-headed wolves might reach the press in time to dissuade rumored ranks-breakers at independent Lionsgate and the Weinstein Company from cutting similar deals.

• SHOCKER! WGA To Announce Side Deal With Tom Cruise’s United Artists; Now Studio Moguls Mad At MGM’s Sloan [DHD]
• Writers Guild is close to a deal with UA [LAT]