[T]he dissident group is running a slate of candidates to fill 11 seats in the powerful Hollywood division that are up for grabs on the national board. In addition, the group is competing for another 22 seats for those who serve as alternates to replace board members who often are working.

The candidates include Kate Walsh and Amy Brenneman, the stars of "Private Practice"; Doug Savant, who plays the harried husband Doug Scavo on "Desperate Housewives"; and Adam Arkin, known for his role as Aaron Shutt in "Chicago Hope."

In all, nearly one-third of the board's 71 seats will be decided in the Sept. 18 election (the deadline for declaring candidacies is Thursday). Although Rosenberg has one more year in his term, the results could be pivotal in gauging support for his negotiating strategy and could change the balance of power in the notoriously fractious 120,000-member union."We think the current leadership has put SAG on a dangerous path," said Ned Vaughn, a veteran character actor and spokesman for the slate.

The unmistakable smell of revolucion is in the air. We can only hope that UFS clings steadfastlly to its ideologies, and resists the urge to indulge its crasser propagandist impulses by throwing an iconoclastic image of Adam Arkin in a beret on a T-shirt that will eventually make its way onto the back of a clueless frat boy who picks it up as a souvenir while on vacation in Cozumel.

• Election challenge arises to SAG leadership [LAt]

The AMPTP has told SAG that the pay increases offered in the deal would be retroactive to July 1 as long as the guild can get the deal ratified by its 120,000 members on or before Aug. 15.

News of the incentive emerged Wednesday with the majors prepping contingency plans for declaring the sides to be at an "impasse" should SAG remain unmoved. At that point, if there's no strike, the majors can implement the terms of the "last, best and final" offer that it handed the guild on June 30, as dictated by labor law.

SAG bosses are still expected to reject the offer, smelling blood even as a strike vote is still expected to fall short. Wake us when there's progress.

• Studios sweeten SAG offer [Variety]

That's a lot under any circumstances (most contracts pass with at least 90% approval). But while it's not likely enough to get the studios to sweeten its offer to SAG, it is enough for the union leaders to have one last healthy, fun whack at each other, starting with SAG boss Alan Rosenberg:

Clearly many Screen Actors Guild members responded to our education and outreach campaign and voted against the inadequate AFTRA agreement. We knew AFTRA would appeal to its many AFTRA-only members, who are news people, sportscasters and DJs, to pass the tentative agreement covering acting jobs. ...

Screen Actors Guild is the actors union with more than 95% of the work under this contract, jurisdiction over all motion pictures, and over 4 billion dollars in member earnings under the SAG agreement over just the last three years. ...

We will continue to address the issues of importance to actors that AFTRA left on the table and we remain committed to achieving a fair contract for SAG actors.

AFTRA president Roberta Reardon was a little more constructive, calling for more collaboration and advance talks before future negotiations — but not before claiming a "moral victory" and punching Rosenberg squarely in his prop-shop codpiece:

Clearly, this was not a typical ratification process, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. To those of us for whom labor solidarity is more than just a slogan, the idea that politically-motivated leaders of one union would use their members' dues to attack another union is unconscionable. Working people do not benefit when their union is under attack.

It's OK, Roberta — this crap has only been going on for 60 years now. Keep your mushroom clouds handy: Hollywood Strikewatch 2011, here we come!

• AFTRA accepts deal [Variety]
• AFTRA Members Ratify AMPTP Contract [DHD]

"I do not think it is a good time to strike now. The issues could be resolved over the next couple of years (without strike action)," De Niro said.

He contrasted calls by SAG to strike with the deal done by the DGA on the same issues, suggesting that directors had "done their homework" to get a decent deal.

"I do not think the actors have done that," he said. "I do not know if it is the right time to be doing this at all with the economy the way it is."

Nowhere is the economy worse than De Niro's vocabulary, where contractions are going for a record $140 per barrel but which powers along nevertheless on self-effacing candor and embittering agency-hopping. And while his point of view hardly seems to embrace the AFTRA contract on which members will vote this week, he isn't to be classified in the "neutral Clooneyesque pansy" category, either, thus requiring a whole new segment of the Turf War Map for "Part-Time Directors Who'd Rather Not See The DGA Contract Rendered Worthless Three Months Into its Term." We'll get to work on a redesign straightaway.

• Article Name [Source]

• SAG needs time to analyze offer [THR]

• Stars choose sides in guild brawl [Variety]

I wasn't in Saigon before its fall or in Berlin before the Nazi clampdown, but I wonder if those cities were gripped by a similar sense of helplessness that afflicts Hollywood this week.

Excuse us as we wipe off the last of the Diet Coke spit-take currently speckling our monitor. There—that's better; now we can see what it is we're typing. Now there are those who would certainly find objectionable Bart's likening of Hitler's rise to a failure to reach a workable solution over jurisdiction for low-budget made-for-Internet productions. In fact, you can find examples of said individuals in the blog's comments section, which begins, "Burt [sic], you're a moron," continuing through to the trenchant observation that "missing one season of One Tree Hill is worse than the Holocaust." But we're inclined to give him a pass on this one. He said up-front he bore no witness to any of the listed historical atrocities; maybe Hollywood's current mood is a lot like them, maybe it's not! Maybe it's more like the Cuban Missile Crisis. Upsetting? Sure. Potentially destructive on a scale of which humankind can only barely begin to conceive? Definitely. But avoidable through some tense, 12th hour negotiations? You betcha, kiddos.

• Down Town [Peter Bart]
• Networks Lie Low on Actors' Contract [NY Times]

At the risk of being yet another actor giving his opinion about the ongoing fight between SAG and AFTRA, I'm hoping that there might be a way out of this. Rather than pitting artist against artist, maybe we could find a way to get what both unions are looking for.

Both are, of course, right. AFTRA feels that a work stoppage would be devastating to its members and SAG believes that if they don't draw a line in the sand, the studios will repeat what they did with DVDs.

There are a couple of fundamental facts that both sides have to start with ... first is that the WGA, DGA and IATSE all agreed to a certain model (DVDs not being a part of it). Breaking that model for AFTRA or SAG would retroactively break the other models ... so you can be pretty sure that the AMPTP isn't going to do that.

Jesus, this totally throws our SAG Strike Mad Libs™ out of whack. That said, neutral as Clooney sounds, his recognition of the models already in place and the whole "quarterback-protecting-the-linemen" metaphor that follows both support the rumors he leans pro-AFTRA. But we don't really care either way, now that Kim Masters has unequivocally attested there will be no SAG strike anyway:

Already, production has slowed way down in Hollywood because no one wants to be caught with the cameras rolling if the actors were to walk. But SAG hasn't even called for strike authorization (which would take three weeks and the approval of 75 percent of those voting). The reason seems obvious: The union wouldn't get it. The economy sucks, and the rank and file simply don't have the appetite for a strike after the Writers Guild walkout earlier this year. ... We're just sticking with something that makes a lot of money for industry executives these days even if it kind of sucks: reality.

Great. So now what are we supposed to do with our stockpile of bottled water and canned goods?

[Photo Credit: Teeny Manolo]

• George Clooney pens letter over SAG talks [THR]
• Reality Bites: Why the actors' strike won't happen [Slate]

As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. ...

SAG announced Tuesday it had added high-profile supporters including Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen. It's also amped up its PR campaign via print ads.

The SAG-AFTRA brawling also raises the key question of clout. SAG has blasted the notion of the AFTRA deal serving as a template, because AFTRA's last primetime contract generated $40 million for members while SAG's last three-year feature-primetime pact generated $4 billion over the same period. Observers say the argument makes little sense, because SAG has so many more members working in the primetime and film arena.

Elsewhere in the paper, the AMPTP gets the backhanded benefit of the doubt: "Studios could stop haggling over pennies, but that's sort of like telling an insurance company to quit low-balling you. That's just what they do — relying on any sane person to give up first." Which suggests to us there's only one solution — a fun, unscripted, winner-take-all slugfest that would conveniently circumvent any potential work stoppage following AFTRA's ratification vote next month: Ladies and gentlemen, let's play the Feud!

• SAG, AFTRA in Spin Cycle [Variety]
• SAG Misses its 'Norma Rae' Moment [Variety]

We are confronting a number of challenging issues, and a resolution may not be quick or easy. ... AFTRA members and the Industry should be able, given appropriate safeguards, to satisfy and profit from the consumers' desire to access content through legitimate New Media sources, as opposed to the unlawful and uncompensated piracy that threatens the entire entertainment industry.

There are no easy solutions, which means that our Negotiating Committee must be both innovative and pragmatic, and the Industry must also embrace a realistic approach.

This all comes mere days after one of the new-media sticking points was revealed to be an online "clip library" of SAG/AFTRA members. In what they're calling an effort to curb said piracy, the studios want to make the actors' likenesses available online on a pay-per-use basis. The unions, which maintain they've had the right over that usage for decades, refuse to cede it now.

Leslie Simmons first noted the impasse last week, suggesting SAG's skittishness over AFTRA acquiescing to the producers' demands. Reardon's e-mail implies otherwise, but SAG's national executive director Dave Allen wasn't taking any chances today anyway, complaining in a SAG video quoted on Variety, "We think that's a real problem, and we suspect that the membership will agree with us."

Additionally, the actors are negotiating for the right of refusal with regard to product placement; if Robert Downey Jr. decides around the time of the next Iron Man that he hates Audis or abhors Vanity Fair, then they're as good as gone. We'd like to think that's one for the next contract (SAG returns to the bargaining table May 28), but if they really do plan to dynamite the industry, they might as well get their money's worth.

• AFTRA Negotiations With AMPTP [DHD]
• SAG hip to clip issue [Variety]

· More 90210 spinoff casting confirmations! (Does anyone care about this? Do we care about this?) Jessica Walter, aka Lucille Bluth, will play Tabitha Mills, the "former Hollywood star grandmother [with] alcohol problem." (OK, now we're fully invested.) Ryan Eggold will play Ryan Matthews, "a cool English lit teacher at West Beverly High whose unorthodox teaching style puts him at odds with his fellow teachers and sometimes too close with his students." [THR]
· With all its hit series back on the air, ABC earned a solid second-place finish to Fox, who've won their 16th consecutive week since Idol's new season began. Stunningly, the fate of the TV universe hinges on a woman so plastered she can't count to two. [Variety]
· Just ten days to go before the non-upfronts, and we still no next-to-nothing about what networks plan to put on the air, save Fox's practically-a-sure-thing pickup of Family Guy spinoff, Cleveland. [THR]

They write, "By publicly naming names and encouraging people who have the power to hire writers to keep them 'at arm's length,' and saying they must be 'judged accountable, it is clear the WGA leadership is seeking to deny employment to these writers in the future. That is a direct violation of federal labor law, and as the employers of those writers, we have a responsibility to defend them and the rule of law in this case." The WGA quickly responded, saying the charges are "baseless and represent an intrusion by the studios into an internal union matter." We fear this matter will only continue to escalate, leading eventually to ugly and violent protests as the Fi-Core 28 are bussed onto studio lots to enact their basic, soap-writer's right to pen crappy dialogue involving serial-killing transexuals and the cancer-battling half-sisters who love them.

• WGA, studios return to corners [Variety]

They write that the fi-coring members "must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are - strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk," a seething reprobation arrived upon after an all-night drafting session that saw the floor littered in crumpled-up wads of paper containing such rejected sentence fragments as "fi-ggots," "...strongly suggest you trip them in the studio commissaries," and "can suck our balls." The 21 black-listees are linked to on a separate page. A preliminary investigation reveals almost all to be soap writers, with the exception of U-Turn and Three Kings writer John Ridley. As for Michelle Lisanti, we have no reason to believe the former One Life To Live writer is of any relation to Defamer's founder and editor-at-large, or, to be a little more sudsy about it, that he may have been masquerading, Tootsie-style, as a cross-dressing daytime drama writer under our noses all along.

The letter follows:

Letter from the Presidents

Dear Fellow Members of the Writers Guilds East and West:

During our 100-day strike, the extraordinary solidarity you demonstrated on the picket lines and the courage and dedication with which you committed yourselves to our cause were not only an inspiration but also the key to making our actions successful.

In the face of enormous personal and financial hardship on the part of many, you sacrificed in the knowledge that your refusal to work would reap benefits not only for yourselves but countless others in the creative community, now and in the future. Your stalwart resolve paid off.

Yet among the many there were a puny few who chose to do otherwise, who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm's length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are - strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk.

While others forfeited paychecks to stand in unity with their fellow Guild members, many who went financial core continued to collect salaries. Without concern for their colleagues, they turned their backs and tossed the burden of collective action onto the rest of us, taking jobs, reducing our leverage and damaging the Guilds for their own advantage.

Even in cases of deep financial distress, there were other options, including generous no-interest loans from our strike funds, which would have sustained them until the end of the strike and beyond. That's what unions are for.

Those who went financial core did not share in the adversity; and should not share in our victory. They cannot vote in our elections, run for Guild office, attend Guild meetings and other events, or participate in the Writers Guild Awards. Further, it has been determined by the National Council of the Guilds West and East, and affirmed by Guild East Council and the Guild West Board, that we send this joint letter with a link to a list on respective websites of those who went financial core during the strike. To view it now and for future reference, you can find it at: subpage_member.aspx?id=2828.

The rest of us are all in this together.
Sincerely,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

Michael Winship
President, WGAE

• Letter from the Presidents [WGA.org]

· Foreigners aren't picky. They love 10,000 B.C.! [Variety]
· Big Brother is sent back to the summer TV gulag, after a freakish, strike-necessitated winter edition, which never quite caught on with the show's easily confused, seasonally dependent viewership. [THR]
· Ken Davitian has been cast in Fox's Bernie Mac sitcom Starting Under, where audiences will do everything they can to wipe away the image of his flabby, fur-covered ass cheeks squeezing the last gasps of air from Sacha Baron Cohen's heaving lungs. [THR]

· Ugly Betty showrunner Silvio Horta has signed a two-year, mid-seven-figure pact with ABC Studios to continue his Betty duties, and develop other series for the studio. [Variety]
· Finicky Hulk Edward Norton and highly blogpinionated Endeavor head Ari Emanuel are shopping around a documentary about Barack Obama's presidential bid. Some studios have expressed interest, so long as it's on a "happy-ending-contingent basis...And we think you know what we mean...Wink, wink..." [Variety]
· The Tribeca Film Festival, beginning April 23, has announced this year's lineup, a much leaner program than last year's overstuffed affair. While Baby Mama will open the festival, it's Melvin Van Peeble's Confessions of an Ex-DoofusItchyFooted Mutha that has us most intrigued, if we're basing our interest on title alone. [Variety]

So imagine our delight on last night's Late Show, when host David Letterman introduced Counter and WGAw executive director David Young (close enough), there to commemorate the new contract with a vigorous round of tonsil hockey. Take heed, SAG president Alan Rosenberg: When the time comes for your own round of lemonpartyaid, Counter is notorious for slipping the tongue.

• Late Show with David Letterman

· Edie Falco follows in Mary Louise Parker's footsteps, starring in a half-hour comedy for Showtime produced by Lionsgate, about "an iron-willed Gotham nurse balancing the challenges of work in an urban hospital and a difficult personal life." No title yet, but may we suggest Needles? Then they can plug it as the "Weeds n' Needles Comedy Hour." [Variety]
· Discovery Channel got cold feet about airing Oscar-nominated documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, about the murder of an Afghani cab driver at a U.S. air base, so HBO scooped it up for a September airing. [Variety]
· THR questions if the lack of post-strike activity suggests "the calm before the storm or the calm before more calm?" Not to criticize their coverage, but they completely left out the possibility of it being the calm before the storm before another brief period of calmness before a steadier storm front moves in. So many possibilities! [THR]

Construction on the granite memorial jutting out of the 1,820-foot Cahuenga Peak (artist's rendering above) is to begin immediately, but it's projected it will take at least three years before the final chisels are made into Peter Chernin's nostrils, Bob Iger's hairline, and Moonves's sparkling, four-foot teeth by the migrant Asian quarry workers and moonlighting WGA members hired to complete the dangerous task. Upon completion, however, we'll have an enduring and highly visible (15 miles on a clear day!) reminder of the troika of great captains of Hollywood industry who ushered a Golden Era of peace into a strife-fraught zone.

• Land above famed Hollywood sign up for sale [Reuters]
• Previously: The Strike Is Over! Look Busy! [Defamer]

UPDATE: Is Dick Clark pulling the levers? After the jump.

I'm told by sources that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and NBC are on the verge of taking legal action against the WGA for actions leading to the cancellation of this year's Golden Globes.

Really, could Jeff Zucker possibly be more of a putz? I say the WGA should countersue the NBC Universal midget for impersonating a mogul (and the HFPA for impersonating a legitimate news organization).

Even in the spirit of the Everybody's Suing Everybody Day season, we pray the rumor isn't true. Still, one glance at the President and CEO's track record (we're reminded of the time a number of SNL writers scheduled to read a "Top Ten Demands of the Striking Writers" list on Letterman were fatally felled by a tumbling safe that Late Show producers to this day insist was not a scheduled bit) is enough to convince us of this: That an internal conference call with perfect NBC storm Ben Silverman probably lamented the death of their awards season crown jewel, eventually floating the possibility of "sapping the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids at Hollywood High for whatever's left over after their little uprising bleeds them bone dry," followed by dark, bellowing laughs heard from Burbank clear through to Universal City.

UPDATE: Nikki Finke updates her story by clarifying that it was "Dick Clark Productions and possibly even by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association" who mulled legal action, and then approached NBC to join them. NBC has now officially denied that they will be filing suit.

• Sources: NBC & Hollywood Foreign Press May Sue WGA Over No Golden Globes [deadlinehollywooddaily.com]

"We will never know if they would have achieved these things without a strike. I think it's really important now that everybody come back together, and work together. I think that's going to happen. Let's not look backward; let's look forward.

Let's not talk just once every three years but maybe every month. Especially on new media. The rules of our business are changing so rapidly, the ways people are using media and content are changing so rapidly. For our creative partners, relationships and communication are really important. The (WGA) realizes it, and we realize it."

Although relations between guild leaders and AMPTP conglom toppers seemed to be nonexistent during the worst stalemate periods of the strike in December and early January, Moonves said the ill will quickly dissipated once both sides agreed to meet together in small groups and under the cover of a media blackout.

"Once (WGA leaders) got to know some of us (toppers) they realized where we were coming from. Nobody handed us these jobs," Moonves said. And he was quick to praise his colleagues Chernin and Iger for "doing an excellent job in going in with (WGA toppers) and working out the details."

Moonves, we suspect, could have prevented the stoppage back in early November with a mesmerizing flash of his legendary, 150-tooth smile had he not wanted everyone to suffer for three months for his personal amusement. (Indeed, that may seem cruel and selfish, but a guy bent on eventual intergalactic domination has to get his jollies somewhere.) But as the executive notes above, it's unproductive to look backward when there is so much work to be done; rather than fret about what could or couldn't have been achieved without the near-total shutdown, he'll be personally overseeing the most important concession he and his troika of power players gained during their face-to-face negotiations: the construction of a Mt. Rushmore-inspired monument on the land above the Hollywood sign commemorating their heroic efforts to save the industry from total destruction, from which the faces of Moonves, Iger and Chernin will smile upon the beautiful city they saved for all time.

• It's official: WGA strike is over [Variety]
• Writers Guild Members Vote to End Strike [WGA.org]

· Behind one of the lowest-rated Grammys of all time (which managed a meager average of 17.5 million viewers—not even the red-hot Andy Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard could save them!), CBS manages a Sunday night Nielsen win. [Variety]
· The Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. estimates that the strike cost the local economy $2 billion, about four times more than the 1998 walkout that lasted six weeks longer. [THR]
· The Visual Effects Society rewards the genius of Michael Bay's Giant Fucking Robots vision, handing Transformers (and the Industrial Light & Magic team who put those creepily realistic lips on Optimus Prime) four awards. [Variety]

Those who don't want to kick their gloom habit cold-turkey can feel free to fret about the June 30th expiration of SAG's contract with the studios and the possible (if increasingly unlikely) walkout that could follow, or spend some time perusing today's "Was the strike worth it?" piece in Variety, which attempts to throw a sobering bucket of cold water upon those still drunk on this weekend's good news by making them consider the "here and now" losses incurred while achieving "victories in new media that may pay big dividends in the future." (Example: Did you know that some of the aforementioned showrunners may have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of dollars during the stoppage to help save writers' livelihoods in the internet age? They must be crazy!) In the interest of preserving the first days of positive feelings the industry has experienced in about fourteen weeks, can't we all go back to swigging champagne and not picking though the wreckage of the post-strike landscape, at least for the next 48 hours or so? No one wants his Monday morning hangover exascerbated by the tsk-tsking pal who insists you move the car you've parked on his lawn before your headache begins to subside.

• Showrunners back to work Monday [Variety]
• Dealmakers spurred by fear, loathing [Variety]
• TV's new developments [Variety]

To Our Fellow Members,

We have a tentative deal.

It is an agreement that protects a future in which the Internet becomes the primary means of both content creation and delivery. It creates formulas for revenue-based residuals in new media, provides access to deals and financial data to help us evaluate and enforce those formulas, and establishes the principle that, "When they get paid, we get paid."

Specific terms of the agreement are described in the summary at the following link and will be further discussed at our Saturday membership meetings on both coasts. At those meetings we will also discuss how we will proceed regarding ratification of this agreement and lifting the restraining order that ends the strike. Details of the Los Angeles meeting can be found at this link.

Less than six months ago, the AMPTP wanted to enact profit-based residuals, defer all Internet compensation in favor of a study, forever eliminate "distributor's gross" valuations, and enforce 39 pages of rollbacks to compensation, pension and health benefits, reacquisition, and separated rights. Today, thanks to three months of physical resolve, determination, and perseverance, we have a contract that includes WGA jurisdiction and separated rights in new media, residuals for Internet reuse, enforcement and auditing tools, expansion of fair market value and distributor's gross language, improvements to other traditional elements of the MBA, and no rollbacks.

Over these three difficult months, we shut down production of nearly all scripted content in TV and film and had a serious impact on the business of our employers in ways they did not expect and were hard pressed to deflect. Nevertheless, an ongoing struggle against seven, multinational media conglomerates, no matter how successful, is exhausting, taking an enormous personal toll on our members and countless others. As such, we believe that continuing to strike now will not bring sufficient gains to outweigh the potential risks and that the time has come to accept this contract and settle the strike.

Much has been achieved, and while this agreement is neither perfect nor perhaps all that we deserve for the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice, our strike has been a success. We activated, engaged, and involved the membership of our Guilds with a solidarity that has never before occurred. We developed a captains system and a communications structure that used the Internet to build bonds within our membership and beyond. We earned the backing of other unions and their members worldwide, the respect of elected leaders and politicians throughout the nation, and the overwhelming support of fans and the general public. Our thanks to all of them, and to the staffs at both Guilds who have worked so long and patiently to help us all.

There is much yet to be done and we intend to use all the techniques and relationships we've developed in this strike to make it happen. We must support our brothers and sisters in SAG who, as their contract expires in less than five months, will be facing many of the same challenges we have just endured. We must further pursue new relationships we have established in Washington and in state and local governments so that we can maintain leverage against the consolidated multinational conglomerates with whom we bargain. We must be vigilant in monitoring the deals that are made in new media so that in the years ahead we can enforce and expand our contract. We must fight to get decent working conditions and benefits for writers of reality TV, animation, and any other genre in which writers do not have a WGA contract.

Most important, however, is to continue to use the new collective power we have generated for our collective benefit. More than ever, now and beyond, we are all in this together.

Best,

Patric M. Verrone
President, WGAW

Michael Winship
President, WGAE

• Writers, Producers Reach Tentative Deal [Variety]

As we wrote here earlier today, the WGA constitution lays out a few timelines for when the strike could be called off. One permissible timeline would have a ratification vote completed by Wednesday.

In light of that option, many members have contacted U.H. privately or posted comments stating the importance of having time to digest the deal points and make up their minds in a responsible way. Keenly aware that there are pilots, tv shows, movies, jobs and a popular ceremony hanging in the balance, they are not asking for weeks, but rather days. When weighed against the three-year life of this contract (or possibly twenty-year life, if DVDs are any indication) 72 hours seems a very reasonable request.

WGA presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship have stated that no action will be taken until some consensus emerges among the membership. We have faith that they will do that. When they say they will let the membership decide, we take them at their word.

Should it become clear on Saturday night that the memberships in New York and LA need a day or two to digest the deal points, we think they will respect that. Likewise, if it's clear that the majority of members strongly supports the contract, we could be back at work on Monday.

Do with this information what you will: the optimistic might want to hit Party Plus to stock up on plastic champagne flutes for their late Saturday night Let's Get Back To Work! bacchanals, while the more resolutely suspicious could head to CostCo to hoard the canned peaches, enormous bottles of Ketel One and pallets of Ramen noodles that will get them through the six strike-ravaged months that follow the discovery of a secret "the studios reserve the right to demand a full refund of all internet-derived payments should the next The Office webisode fail to draw 500 million hits" clause the studios have quietly inserted into the contract. Should you opt for the party route, please make sure Mr. Eisner receives an invitation; it's the least you can do to repay him for finally bringing this thing to an end.

• Getting Ready for Saturday Night [United Hollywood]

"It's over," Eisner said. "They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It's going on Saturday to the writers in general."

Eisner, speaking live on CNBC's "Fast Money," seemed to hesitate initially about whether it was possible that the writers could still reject the agreement, but finally suggested the deal's acceptance was inevitable.

"A deal has been made, and they'll be back to work very soon," Eisner said, adding, "I know a deal's been made. I know it's over."

So there you have it: Hands have been shaken! Crucial Guild meetings have been dismissed as mere formalities! Everyone should get ready to head back to work as soon as five minutes from now, undeterred by the inevitable WGA e-mail blast suggesting that Eisner should probably go back to keeping himself busy dreaming up new Prom Queen plotlines instead of trying to call off the picket lines.

• Deal Has Been Reached to End Writers' Strike: Eisner [CNBC.com]

Did Carter not hear Academy president Sid Ganis' luncheon proclamation that his show would go on, even in the now seemingly unlikely event he'd have to mow down every writer on that picket line with his limousine to reach the Kodak Theatre? We hope for the sake of the entire industry that this report proves false, for everyone's suffered far too much already to have to deal with the possibility that a few hundred of Carter's best showbiz friends might have to make alternate plans on the most important night of the year.

UPDATE: People.com has the heartbreaking statement: "After much consideration, and in support of the writers and everyone else affected by this strike, we have decided that this is not the appropriate year to hold our annual Oscar party. We want to congratulate all of this year's nominees and we look forward to hosting our 15th Oscar party next year." We feel it's not too soon to start praying that Elton John finds the inner strength to continue on with his annual party plans despite this tragic blow to Hollywood's awards-season morale.

• Radar

· Enchanted star and America's Current Sweetheart Amy Adams is in talks to join the cast of Night at the Museum 2 as the "undetermined historical figure" (Ann Boleyn? Catherine The Great?) love-interest of Ben Stiller. [Variety]
· Resisting the impulse to join in the upfront-canceling fad sweeping some of its network competitors, Fox pledges that it's committed to putting on the wasteful, inefficient dog-and-pony show media buyers in search of open bars so cherish. [THR]
· Cautious OptimismWatch, Part II: The WGA announces a general membership meeting for Saturday, during which writers will get the details of the proposed contract with the studios. [Variety]

Time is of the essence in getting the board to sign off on a deal with the upcoming television pilot season, and the Feb. 24 Academy Awards show, hanging in the balance.

While the negotiating committee, headed by John Bowman, is expected to recommend the pending contract, approval by the board is not necessarily a slam-dunk because it is composed of several hard-liners who may be tougher to win over.

Furthermore, any approval would come only after a formal accord is drawn up by lawyers on both sides.

Attorneys are putting in writing what guild negotiators and studio representatives verbally agreed to Friday when they bridged key differences over how much writers should earn for work distributed over the Internet.

To help thousands of still-fragile WGA members survive the emotionally harrowing week to come, United Hollywood urges writers to take a deep breath, head back to the picket lines, and hope for the best; after all, Friday's reported gains could easily be lawyered out of existence if the Guild allows itself to be distracted by premature dreams of the strike's end—or, in a far more distressing scenario, if AMPTP bogeyman Nick Counter, enraged by the speedy undoing of months of his hard work in negotiations-avoidance, somehow chews through his restraints in time to scuttle the seemingly imminent deal.

• Guild board favors deal, with caution [LAT]
• Previously: The Strike Is Over! Or Over In A Week! Or Everyone's Being Set Up For Another Crushing Letdown! [Defamer]

But despite the widespread, media-blackout-defying leaks (and mogul-supplied proclamations issued from a luxury suite at the big game in Arizona) indicating that a deal could be reached sometime this week (huzzah!), the Guild quickly cautioned its members not to b