The fallout from Paramount's recent release-date shuffle continues today, with agents and saber-rattling DreamWorks brass continuing their protest over The Soloist's move to 2009. While we sustain our first impression that the Jamie Foxx/Robert Downey Jr. tearjerker will in fact be better than the diabetic-coma inducing trailers already in circulation, that's not much comfort to those who fear the bump from November to March will impugn Soloist's profile among critics and audiences alike. But now, as a peace offering to the angry gods at CAA who packaged the film for the 'Works with its clients Downey, Foxx and director Joe Wright, Paramount has forged a silver lining for one-third of that jilted braintrust.

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Though the sight of Princess Leia in a gold bikini could make any gay geek question his sexuality, being married to Carrie Fisher apparently had the opposite effect on CAA superagent Bryan Lourd. The two were together for three years (he fathered Fisher's daughter Billie in 1992) before Lourd famously left Fisher for another man. Now, in her new memoir Wishful Drinking, Fisher claims that Lourd blamed her and her pill-popping ways for making him gay. Page Six has the excerpt:

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Whooop! Whooop! CAA Kitchen Fire! Just when you had been lulled into a false sense of Death Star culinary confidence—positive that no incendiary Chinese appetizers would again engulf the TV lit department in thick clouds of cabbage-and-pork-scented smoke—comes this CAA! Kitchen! Fire! Deathtrap! Exclusive! "Subject: CAA can't cook! they set fire to their kitchen and got evacuated!" We ask that you remain calm at this time, until we get a full headcount (just the agents, obviously—not assistants); commuters in the Century City area, meanwhile, are instructed to keep as far away from the scene as possible, regardless of how enticing those wafting, mouth-watering gusts of BBQ baby meat might be. [Defamer]

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There are certain universal truths about Hollywood agents: namely, that they never pick up your phone calls, deal with you mostly through their assistants, and always seem to be finding work for people who aren't you. Sadly, E! bobblehead Giuliana Rancic (who we last saw announcing the death of "Brad Redfro" while dressed in a somber tube top) has failed to grasp that last tenet — in fact, she's suing her agents at William Morris for having the audacity to focus on anyone but her. Says Page Six:

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Nicita Has Left the Building: Not a day too soon, it appears, 42-year agency veteran and CAA partner Rick Nicita is ditching his Death Star digs for the co-chairman spot at Morgan Creek. Nicita joins a distinguished list of CAA defectors to studio front offices, led by Michael Ovitz's spectacular Disney flame job and Ron Meyer's decidedly improved turn heading up Universal. The latter studio's distribution partnership with Morgan Creek will come in handy for Nicita, who will be charged with restoring the Creek to its late-'80s/early-'90s golden years after a string of recent underachievers including The Good Shepherd and Man of the Year. We admit we're a little surprised; at a time when most of his old CAA contemporaries are slowing down and/or testifying in federal court, Nicita's move is that of a man with something to prove — most likely with wife Paula Wagner and client Tom Cruise looking on studiously from their own perches at UA. That's just the kind of mensch he is. Good luck, Rick! [LAT, Photo Credit: Getty Images]

A sweeping profile of Endeavor hit The NY Times on Sunday, placing the agency's arduous climb to power in a welcome new perspective. By virtually all accounts, ETA has "grown up" — from a puckish, oversexed boys club to a puckish, oversexed employer of Jodie Foster's rumoured lesbian paramour (and more than a half-dozen female partners, up from zero just a few years ago). But despite all Ari Emanuel's progressive brio, he still can't outrun CAA or his own choppy past — Michael Ovitz gets a fun body-blow in by the eighth paragraph, Ari not-so-strenuously deflects those nagging sale and/or merger rumours, and, for those who missed it, there's a recap of Endeavor's somewhat experimental sexual/ethnic chemistry:

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An eagle-eyed Defamer operative caught a wonderful if short-lived revision at CAA's Wikipedia page this morning, when, for 30 precious minutes, the agency's storied history of talent relations included colluding with Joe and Ashlee Simpson to rip off her song "My Model":

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Were you, like us, rendered an incapacitated, drooling mess after trying to slog through Variety's report on the agency-defection madness currently gripping the screenwriting trade? Perhaps you are simply a visual learner, in which case we've drafted for you a handy pictorial guide to the recent comings and goings of the Bedhopping Six. (We managed to find photos of all them, save the Google Image-shy husband-wife team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley, the National Treasure writers instead represented by Nicolas Cage wielding a torch inside Mt. Rushmore's Teddy Roosevelt nostril.)

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If Robert De Niro's appearance at last night's Meryl Streep tribute in New York is any indication, all those haters who ridiculed the actor's agency switch last week might have another thing coming. To wit: De Niro killed. In a cruise-ship comic kind of way, perhaps, and filing through a fistful of index-carded one-liners, but still. This guy may yet pull down $20 million a picture if his timing keeps up, and he wasted no time soliciting his former co-star Streep to join him — if only someone at CAA would return his calls. Zing! Catch our exclusive video and a few more outtakes from De Niro's repertoire after the jump.

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Seeing as the L.A. Times wouldn't rush any story it couldn't retract in disgrace a few weeks later, John Horn took his sweet time pounding out today's analysis of all the dramatic agency-hopping exploits over the last week-and-a-half. There's a little bit of a long view, here, however, and it's decidedly ugly; for starters, could industry volatility force CAA reps to endure the horrors of — gulp — business class? Or worse?

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