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Flotsam & Jetsam
Bright Lights, Big City, Old Ideas
1:43AM Richard | Movie deals for funny men, a TV deal for a funny woman, AMC branches out, SAG and AFTRA become friends again, and The Simpsons make the mail. More »
SAG is Not Afraid of ‘90210′ or the Rest of Those Dirty AFTRA Freaks
8:30AM STV | Variety reminds us today that a major! labour! crisis! remains in effect at the Screen Actors Guild, which after three months has still made exactly no progress in settling its contract quibbles with the networks and major studios. Still, if those producers aren’t worried, then you shouldn’t be either — especially now that AFTRA is reportedly taking over where SAG can’t necessarily be counted on. To wit, after securing its own three-year deal with the majors over the summer, the union has nabbed some high-profile new recruits for the primetime season to come. More »
Hellos and Goodbyes
12:00PM Defamer Hollywood | Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno exploits took him from Israel to Arkansas; his Sherlock Holmes adventures to come may or may not include the missus. AFTRA ratified its new contract, but SAG didn’t let that spoil its appetite for destruction. Harvey Weinstein is now officially going door-to-door to finance his films. Psst! Buddy! Wanna buy a Tarantino? The TV Critics Association Press Tour is dead. Long live the TCA Press Tour! Lest major Dark Knight spoilers aren’t up your alley, there’s always Michael Bay’s unproduced Awesome Knight screenplay to hold you over another week. After a long string of compatibility issues, Drew Barrymore is on the market for a Mac huckster upgrade. This Week In Magazine Cover Hell: Blake Lively gets the blown-out Skeletor treatment, while the pasty youths of Twilight make EW safe for chest hair. Here’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely RRRAAALLLLPPPHHHHH Defamer’s readers joined Matthew McConaughey in welcoming a bouncing Bongo Romcom to the world. Meanwhile in France, stinky, salmon-devouring, “high-maintenance beetch” Angelina Jolie prepared her post-twinbirth conditioning regimen. Two words: Hula hoop. Pick your reality TV poison for 2009: America’s Greatest Dog or The Ashley Dupre Governor Boink Variety Hour. We wished a healthy recovery (literally) to the rat-friendly Newsroom Cafe, and bid a fond farewell to J-Lo’s slice of Pasadena paradise, Madre’s.
Majors’ ‘Final Offer’ Includes 10 Million New Reasons For SAG to Reject It
8:00AM Defamer Hollywood | 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 ratified anyway, but the majors aren’t taking any chances, notes Variety: More »
Strike Fears Allayed, SAG/AFTRA Now Just in It For the Slap Fights
2:00AM Defamer Hollywood | The nuclear labour plume at left is presented a little closer to actual size this morning, the start of the first full day without the specter of strike hell exhaling waves of rancid breath over Hollywood. Not that AFTRA’s ratification of its prime-time contract Monday evening vanquishes the SAG threat altogether; the 62.4% tally in favour of AFTRA’s deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers suggests that while a strike vote might fail, SAG leadership convinced probably upwards of 10,000 AFTRA members to stand down in the pitched battle between unions. More »
Robert De Niro Calls Out SAG Leadership In Terrifying, Apostrophe-Free Missive
8:00AM Defamer Hollywood | 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 this year in the bargaining trenches to implode once more over residuals: More »Crisis Averted (Sort Of) As AFTRA Reaches Deal with Studios
12:25AM Defamer Hollywood | 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 negotiating partners in the Screen Actors Guild were set to resume their own talks with the majors. And with AFTRA reportedly agreeing to conditions on new-media residuals similar to those accepted by the DGA and WGA during the latter union’s strike, SAG has until June 30 to determine if the terms are good enough for itself — or detonate! The! Industry! with another labour stoppage. More »
Actors No Closer to Deal as SAG, AFTRA Spar Over Clips
7:00AM Defamer Hollywood | 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 discussions’ ongoing news blackout while giving the rank-and-file plenty to leak to the press. To wit: Reardon writes that even AFTRA, which was expected to breeze to a new contract after SAG very publicly dug in its heels last month, is apparently having a hard time coming to terms with the majors on new media: More »
SAG Saves Best Acting For the Press as Negotiations Grind to Halt
5:45AM Defamer Hollywood | 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 labour funk a little too aggressively. Now that his union’s extended (and re-extended) negotiation period with the major studios is over, leaving AFTRA to step in and take everything it’s offered no-questions-asked, Allen kvetched to Variety today that goddammit — they were so close! Like, just a few hours away! No, really. He actually said that: More »
