SAG Asks For More Time To Consider The Deal They've Already Decided They Hate

With the Hollywood StrikeWatch 2: The Actoring doomsday clock clicking into overtime, Team SAGgy (Jack! Rainn! Ben!) has reportedly asked for more time to analyze the AMPTP "final offer" they've already gone on record as saying they really, really, really hate. Team ACTRAvision (Tom! Alec! Susan!), meanwhile, are set to vote in the virtually identical contract offered their guild, the results of which will be announced Tuesday. From THR:

Your SAG Vs. AFTRA Celebrity Turf War Map

You could slog, like we did, through Variety's mind-numbing accounting of which actors sided with the AFTRA agreement reached several weeks ago, which are aligning themselves with the cantankerously unbending SAG, and why. But wouldn't it be easier just to look at their accompanying Venn diagram, and get some instant bearings on where your favorite stars' guild loyalties lie? To spice things up, you can also pit the two sides in a variety of competitive scenarios far sexier than squabbling over pension and health contributions and terms. Which side would win a beach volleyball tournament? A kill-or-be-killed island survival week? A dance-off? A bathing-suit pageant? (George Clooney can either be applied to both teams, or neither. Peter Bart can only participate inasmuch as he likens any particularly satisfying victories to famous U.S. wartime battles.) Have fun!

• Stars choose sides in guild brawl [Variety]

Potential SAG Strike Causes Blog Baby Peter Bart To Invoke Godwin's Law Of Nazi Analogism

We'll admit we've been avoiding addressing the big, white, internet-clip-consent-seeking elephant in the room, so let's just get this out of the way: Today is Tuesday, July 1, 2008. Ring any bells? Yes, it's Canada Day, but the celebration of the day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec fused into one maple-syrup-slurping nation isn't important right now. Rather, today is SAG-contract-expiration day. The AMPTP made their final offer—"worth more than $250 million" said they—and lusciously coiffed SAG-head Alan Rosenberg announced the union would be taking the day to look at all 43 of its sumptuous, residuals-detailing pages. Some characterize the mood as calm—perhaps "eerily calm," suggests the NY Times, as not a single network executive has doused themselves in gasoline and lowered a lit Zippo to their heads in slow motion, mouthing, "But weeee were jusssst makinnng gains in Girrrrls 9-15 demooooo..." before erupting into a ball of skin-searing flames. We turn now to blogger newbie Peter Bart for his showbiz veteran's take on the highly precarious situation:

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.

From High Atop His Lake Como Villa, George Clooney Preaches Solidarity In Looming SAG Non-Crisis

Like clusters of onlookers awaiting the Vatican smoke signals that announce a new pope, all of Hollywood stirred abuzz today learning that George Clooney would finally weigh in with a letter addressing the conflict between SAG and AFTRA. And weigh in he... didn't, instead choosing a neutral stand essentially saying everyone's right and would they please just sit down and try hammering out something constructive for once? Seriously, folks:

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.

Stars Choose Sides as SAG Strike Apocalypse Descends

Everywhere we've been around the LA Film Festival this week, the chatter du jour is either oversexed studio minions or how folks plan to spend their off-days during the increasingly inevitable-looking SAG strike. The latter conflict came into even sharper relief today in Variety, which published a SAG-AFTRA Bullshit Scorecard (hardly an improvement over our SAG Strike Mad Libs™, but whatever) breaking down the lies, celebrity endorsees and various other spin the unions are wielding in their steel-cage labor war:

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. ...

Set-Mule William Hurt Makes The Leap To TV

· Anhedonic The Incredible Hulk star William Hurt brings his unparalleled work ethic to FX's Damages for his first-ever regular TV series role. [Variety]
· Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman will helm the movie version of Gears of War, which he'll accomplish by pressing L2 while firing X repeatedly and holding down the triangle button. [Variety]
· Kevin Spacey will play a pothead "shrink to the stars" in Shrink. [Variety]
· SAG head Alan Rosenberg proposed an official debate with AFTRA, promising the most scintillating back-and-forth about online clip consent and jurisdiction over low-budget made-for-Internet productions in the history of inter-acting-guild debates. Yeah, this doesn't look good. [THR]
· ER added four more regular cast members to its upcoming final season. More characters=more deaths=more ratings! [THR]

Grab an Industry Friend and Play SAG Strike Mad Libs!

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. That said, a story is a story, so why not stimulate your interest (and ours) by adding your own fun invective and hyperbole to the mix!

For starters: "The threat of a SAG [NOUN] reached near-[ADJECTIVE] levels this week as the actor's union [PAST-TENSE VERB] continued its acrimonious stand-off with the [PLURAL NOUN] at the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers." Follow the jump for more — the fun (almost) never ends!

Unencumbered By Boob-Job Drama, George Clooney Mulls His Next Step

· Warner Bros. is developing the spy thriller novel The Tourist as a potential George Clooney vehicle which will explode in the first reel and set the entire plot in motion. What about the goat movie? When does that one come out? [Variety]
· The WGA will hold a referendum next month to simplify its credit procedures, hopefully eliminating screenwriter name-gumbo like this. [Variety]
· If you're currently in production, we hope you're shooting in Waiverland, as SAG head Alan Rosenberg doubts any agreement will be reached by the deadline date of June 30. [Variety]
· Jack Black has dropped out of Borat-writer/director Todd Phillips's Man-Witch, a movie about a man who's a witch, supposedly because Black is concerned Phillips will shoot another movie called Hangover, about a bachelor party who wakes up in Vegas and realizes they lost the groom, first. May the best wacky premise win! [THR]
· Universal buys a comedy spec called Raindrops All Around Me, about "a socially inept high school teacher who learns to 'dumb it down' in order to fit in with the people around him." Said a Universal rep, "We think after a few more drafts to broaden the humor, Middle America will really eat this up!" [THR]

SAG The Alexis To AFTRA's Krystle

· The 24th day of negotiations brings us no closer to SAG-deal closure, as the actors' union refuses to endorse the AFTRA deal signed last week. (And that despite all the sexy progress AFTRA made in negotiating "online clip consent and jurisdiction over low-budget made-for-Internet productions!") Meanwhile, time is running out for SAG to petition its 120,000 members for strike approval in time for the June 30 deadline. [Variety]
· Ben Silverman shoots, he scores! The Stanley Cup finals score NBC a second-place finish, inspiring the gimmick-happy network head to his greatest idea yet: The Biggest Loser on Ice! [Variety]
· Former House of Blues president Joseph C. Kaczorowski will partner with Grosvenor Park, a film financing company which offers pre-sale, gap, tax financing, and several other services that instantly render us glazed over with boredom. [Variety]
· It's a light-ethnic-stereotyping showdown at the box office this weekend, as Kung Fu Panda and You Don't Mess With the Zohan face off for your mindless-summer-moviegoing dollars. [THR]
· Jimmy Smits will join Season 3 of Showtime's Dexter, playing Miguel Prado, an "ambitious, charismatic assistant DA" who nevertheless suffers from the same stultifying inability as the rest of the cast to tune in to Dexter's highly damning, V.O. narration. [THR]

Matt Damon To Don Thigh-Baring Shorts For 'Human Factor'

· Celebrity nape-haver Matt Damon will play South African rugby star Francois Pienaar in Clint Eastwood's Human Factor. Accent time! [Variety]
· Chuck creator Josh Schwartz declares "computer geeks...the new doctors and cops of television," by which he means a clichéd profession conspired upon by lazy writers and unimaginative network executives to oversaturate the TV landscape. [Variety]
· SAG is churning out more and more waivers with indie producers, guaranteeing production won't be interrupted after June 30 should something go horribly wrong with the negotiations. It's a limbo agents are referring to as "Waiverland," named for the union spokesman who signs the interim agreements, Kenneth Waiverland. [Variety]
· Bruce Willis will star in Kane & Lynch, a lesser-beloved-videogame adaptation for Lionsgate. [THR]
· Brian DePalma goes to the serial-killer well once more with The Boston Stranglers, written by former Diff'rent Strokes and Head of the Class writer Alan Rosen. No word yet on whether or not they'll throw Dan "Arvid" Frischman a bone. [THR]

Crisis Averted (Sort Of) As AFTRA Reaches Deal with Studios

Actors No Closer to Deal as SAG, AFTRA Spar Over Clips

Trouble Still Loves David O. Russell As SAG Shuts Down 'Nailed'

Rumors also are circulating that the state of South Carolina could withdraw its incentive monies because of the financing problems. Filmmakers hope to resolve the cash crunch and re-start shooting next week since principal photography is only at the halfway point. "I am confident we will finish," an insider on the pic just told me. "The financing on this like most indies is based on bank loans and bridge loans. This is a matter of waiting on the bridge loan. Hopefully, it will all be resolved."

SAG Saves Best Acting For the Press as Negotiations Grind to Halt

Oprah-Led Think Tank Deconstructs Mariah's Quickie-Marriage Logic

For Whom The SAG Strike Bell Tolls

SAG Drama Renewed For Another Episode; Full Season to Follow?

Although the guild hasn't set a strike authorization vote for the 120,000 SAG members yet, the industry continues to fret about a work stoppage. The majors have remained unwilling to commit to starting new feature productions until a SAG deal is in hand — a situation that some in the biz are calling a de facto strike.