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]

"When your own union doesn't back what you've done, the only honorable thing to do is not participate."

So, where did it all go wrong between George and the Guild? Clooney claims that he found the 17-year-old-script for Leatherheads, written by Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly, and gave it a major overhaul. In fact, he feels he wrote all but 2 of the scenes in the period football comedy, and was incensed that the Guild refused to recognize his efforts. Clooney would have resigned from the Guild altogether, but that would mean he couldn't work on WGA-coverd productions anymore, so instead we went Fi-Core. According to producing partner Grant Heslov:

"Financial core was his form of protest, but when he did it, he didn't want it public. We're both big union guys. Between us, we belong to 12 unions. I think they made the wrong decision, and he was within his rights to respond by going financial core."

Amazingly, this all happened before the strike, but George decided to keep it quiet until now so it wouldn't have a negative impact on the protest. Damn you, Clooney. Even when you're angry, you're still a mensch!

• WGA, Clooney at odds over credit [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

• Previously: The Strike Is Over! On Wednesday! Let There Be Rejoicing! But Not Too Much! [Defamer]

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]

· Hard-to-kill Heroes cheerleader and Official Friend of the Dolphins Hayden Panettiere joins the cast of teen comedy Daydream Nation, possibly opposite a Culkin. [Variety]
· FX has abruptly decided not to order any more episodes of Dirt or The Riches because of the strike's interruption of their production, but hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that they might renew the shows for third seasons that will have to awkwardly resolve all the plot threads cut in the middle of this abbreviated run. [THR]
· CBS is its moving Survivor brand into fitness products, starting with something called "Supercharged Sunflower Seeds," a snack undoubtedly rich in the nutrients one needs to live while stranded on a deserted island or trapped in a remote part of China. [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 blow the remainder of their strike funds on lavish going-back-to-work parties based on "rumors about either the existence of an agreement or its terms" (muted huzzah!). So until WGA leadership issues its official announcement of a new contract (to be accompanied by a photo of president Patric Verrone hugging a weeping trio of Les Moonves, Peter Chernin, and Bob Iger), everyone should resume their still-important picketing responsibilities, resisting the impulse to indulge in the occasional high-five recognizing that the end might be in sight.

• Progress Toward Ending Writers' Strike [NY TImes]
• Contract outlined in Hollywood writers strike [LAT]
• Strike: An end in sight? [Variety
• [THR]

· The producer of Broadway's Young Frankenstein answers for a string of unpopular business decisions, admitting that he may have made a teensy mistake in deciding to charge an obscene $450 for an outrage-inspiring "premier" ticket. [Variety]
· Continuing to resist the temptation to cash in on easy romantic comedy roles that once seemed part of his career trajectory, Josh Hartnett signs on for Bunraku, a live-action, martial arts adventure that "draws from a mixed bag of genres including puppets, origami, comic books, video games and German expressionism." [THR]
· The Screen Actors Guild stakes out a date for the 2009 SAGgies, which, barring a total strike disaster, will be of much less interest than '08's. [Variety]

The Ukrainians apparently considered this a momentous occasion. When he finally stepped onto the tarmac in Kiev, Frolick was greeted with a dozen roses and a row of shivering reporters who had been waiting two hours to shove microphones in his face.

"What will feelm be about?" one asked.

"About 80 minutes long," Frolick said to mute stares.

In a way that dramatically upended the skewed hierarchy of the Hollywood system so embedded in the subtext of the current contract deadlock, Frolick was suddenly in the flopped position of being a big fish in a small, frozen pond. And the star treatment reflected that.

Frolick was put up in the Boris Godunov Suite at the Opera, a five-star hotel. He was escorted to every great restaurant and nightclub in the city by a chauffeured Mercedes town car, from which he was frequently captured embarking and disembarking by paparazzi (yes, Frolick was an excellent American ambassador and kept his underwear on).

Over the week he was in Kiev, Frolick starred in half a dozen crowded news conferences, saw "Carmen" performed at the Kiev Opera House and dined with Richard Steffens, the U.S. Embassy's cultural attaché. He participated in a charity event for McDonald's (which has a tie-in to the movie) with the country's top athletes, politicians and celebrities.

His picture was all over the local magazines. One night he was watching the news in his hotel room and saw coverage of the Writers Guild of America strike rally at Fox that he had marched in the week before.

"The press coverage was staggering," Frolick says. "I was Chernobyl without the toxins. Billy Frolick is now to Ukraine what David Hasselhoff is to Germany."

Thankfully, the piece gives every indication that Frolick is a self-deprecating, level-headed sort likely to resist the temptations of meteoric fame that ultimately reduced Hasselhoff to a haunted, floorburger-consuming shell of the megastar with whom his Teutonic fans first fell madly in love. But while the lucky writer seems to have emerged from his Ukrainian odyssey no worse for the wear, we fear the publicity the article will bring to this once-secret Scribetopia will quickly result in its ruination. Soon, agents will flock the hotel bars of Kiev in a desperate attempt to land their idling clients the same kind of commissionable, WGA-approved dream gigs just completed by the pioneering Frolick, an unwelcome infestation that will render the onetime paradise unrecognizable from the Hollywood wasteland from whence the Armani-clad invaders came.

• Striking writer heads to the Ukraine for work [LAT]

As this pair of new video samples demonstrates, he's ready to step in at a moment's notice and fill the gaping banter-hole that would certainly develop between presenters like Will Smith and Mark Wahlberg should the WGA and AMPTP not reach a deal before the ceremony, saving everyone involved from another Golden Globes-style debacle.

• Alex Perez: Scab Writer — Oscars Writing Sample #2 [YouTube]
• Previously: WGA Gives Up Reality TV For Now, Studios To Explore Nonunion Staffing Options [Defamer]

Ten lucky, starving comedy writers not intimidated by the challenge of improving upon slogans like "Use your stomach, nacho mind," and "The road to mediocrity is littered with empty ketchup packets," stand to win a year's supply of Taco Bell-branded foodstuffs (a prize worth a whopping $260), as well as the satisfaction of knowing that their best one-liners will not be wasted on a mumbling Charlie Sheen or a schlubby husband bickering with his too-hot wife..

• Writers Guild Sauce Wisdoms [tacobell.com]
• Previously: Annals Of Opportunistic Marketing: K-Fed Invited To Explore Outside-The-Bun Career Path [Defamer]

· Marvel Studios joins Lionsgate in signing an interim deal with the WGA, a move that should get a handful of uncredited superhero-movie specialists back to punching up scripts for Magneto and Deathlok scripts immediately. [THR]
· Disney will re-release Pixar's Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D in late 2009 and early 2010, hoping kids will scream until their parents take them to see the vastly improved version where Buzz Lightyear flies out of the screen every three minutes. [Variety]

To Our Fellow Members, We have responded favorably to the invitation from the AMPTP to enter into informal talks that will help establish a reasonable basis for returning to negotiations. During this period, we have agreed to a complete news blackout. We are grateful for this opportunity to engage in meaningful discussion with industry leaders that we hope will lead to a contract. We ask that all members exercise restraint in their public statements during this critical period. In order to make absolutely clear our commitment to bringing a speedy conclusion to negotiations, we have decided to withdraw our proposals on reality and animation. Our organizing efforts to achieve Guild representation in these genres for writers will continue. You will hear more about this in the next two weeks. On another issue, the Writers Guild, West Board of Directors has voted not to picket the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Members of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) face many of the same issues concerning compensation in new media that we do. In the interest of advancing our goal of achieving a fair contract, the WGAW Board felt that this gesture should be made on behalf our brothers and sisters in AFM and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA). Best, Patric M. Verrone President, WGAW Michael Winship President, WGAE

· In other NBC-related news, Selma Blair is in negotiations to join Molly Shannon in cast of the sitcom pilot Kath & Kim, another adaptation of one of those pre-approved foreign hits Silverman loves so dearly. [THR]
· In what could be the most optimistic words written about the WGA/AMPTP war in weeks, Var welcomes the beginning of informal, post-DGA-deal talks between the studios and Guild thusly: "Today could be the beginning of the end of the three-month writers strike." [Variety]
· NBC's block of Must See Screaming At Briefcases And Failed Pro Bodybuilders Shooting Tennis Balls At Part-Time Personal Trainers TV (i.e., Deal or No Deal and Gladiators) romps to Nielsen victory on Monday night. [THR]

· Notes of cautious optimism™ have been struck by polled showrunners, though at least one quoted admits that writers may not know if the deal's new media provisions will prove fair until the buggering is already in progress: "'I can't look at that and go, "I'm being fucked"' or "That's good," " he said. 'I don't know what the landscape is going to be a year from now or five years from now. To me, the issue I always thought was the unknown. Maybe they could screw us royally, but we won't know that until it happens.'" [Variety]
· Variety analyzes the deal: "All in all, the master contract agreement...provides substantial gains in new media that will put more coin in the pockets of film and TV helmers." For a slightly different take from those whose livelihoods are at stake, here's United Hollywood's "first glance" at the deal summary. [Variety].
· We're sure that wherever he is, Orson Welles is thrilled that his name graces the title of a Zac Efron project. [THR]
· The networks, desperate for anything they can slap onto their strike-crippled schedules, are going batshit insane for celebrity circus shows! NBC's "closing a deal" for international hit Celebrity Circus, ABC wants to revive Circus of the Stars, and CBS and Fox are fighting to the death to win the rights to A Baldwin Brother To Be Named Rides An Elephant In Circles While Andy Dick Dangles From A Trapeze Above Him. [Variety]

UPDATE: After the jump:

The hightlights of the deal, according to the DGA's press release:

* Increases both wages and residual bases for each year of the contract.

* Establishes DGA jurisdiction over programs produced for distribution on the Internet.

* Establishes new residuals formula for paid Internet downloads (electronic sell-through) that essentially doubles the rate currently paid by employers.

* Establishes residual rates for ad-supported streaming and use of clips on the Internet.

Meanwhile, United Hollywood is cautiously optimistic about what they see in the deal summary: "As good as that sounds — and it sounds really, really good — we can't really evaluate what kind of teeth it has until we know what the structures and provisions they have in place actually are. Information we can only get from the more detailed document. In short, we gotta get a look at all the fine print."

[Variety]

· Everyone is Hollywood is "on edge" (about as big an understatement as we've ever read—how about "doubled over due to gut-splitting tension"?) as they wonder: Where the hell is this imminent DGA deal with the studios that will either a) contain terms just good enough to lead the way to a new contract with the WGA or b) be so unfavorable to writers that the current labor war will continue until the Earth hurtles into the sun? Relief in the form of an official deal announcement may or may not come by the end of the week. [Variety]
· Moving to cement her typecasting as a cheerleader, indestructible Heroes pom-pom girl Hayden Panettiere is in negotiations to star in an adaptation of the novel I Love You, Beth Cooper as a teenage spirit-squadder. [THR]
· Fulfilling its promise to lighten up on staff during the strike, Warner Brothers lays off about three dozen facilities employees. They are, however "very sorry for the impact this has on our nonstriking work force." [THR]

• DGA Deal To Be Announced Tomorrow? [UnitedHollywood.com]
• DGA talks raise hope for WGA [Variety]

• Has WGA — oops — tattled on its award winners? [Gold Derby]

• Weinstein Co. Expects Deal With Writers [AP]
• Previously: United Artists Mogul Tom Cruise Reportedly Buried Under Mountain Of Thousands Of Scripts

· The WGA has announced the nominations for its awards, with Juno, Michael Clayton, The Savages, Knocked Up, and Lars and the Real Girl recognized in the original screenplay category. [Variety]
· How are some striking writers killing time in between picketing shifts and producing YouTube videos? By writing children's books. (Look for Goodnight Moonves at your local Borders soon!) [THR]
· Fox finished Wednesday night in a fourth-place tie with Univision in the 18-49 demographic behind two hours of Back to You and Til Death repeats, biding its time until it unleashes American Idol upon its rivals. [Variety]

• Ben Silverman's Fighting Cocks T-Shirt [Strike Swag]

We just love the idea that a giddy Cruise (the buzz over bringing Paul Haggis into his family surely hasn't faded) now begins each day by diving into the enormous pile of screenplays that dominates his office, and, after emerging from the mound holding aloft a bradded trophy, shouts to his overwhelmed development staff, "Now this one's gotta be better than Lions for Lambs. Let's make a movie. No, let's make a thousand movies! We've got the whole business to ourselves!"

• Previously: Cruise's United Arists Cutting Deal With WGA; AMPTP Less Than Pleased With Traitorous Studio [Defamer]

• Dear Ben Silverman: Prom Is Not Canceled [United Hollywood]

· Bill Maher returns on Friday without writers — meaning no monologue and no "new rules," forcing the host to open each show with the kind of improvisational crowd-work that could've kept Jay Leno from from landing on the Guild's shit-list. [THR]
· The third Pirates installment leads all nominees for the Visual Effects Society Awards with six nods, a recognition of how the movie's innovative FX artists enhanced Johnny Depp's performance to seem 50-percent more drunkenly fey than any actor would have been able to achieve without digital assistance [Variety]

· The studios and the DGA are taking their time "slow dancing" a "protracted tango" on their way to the upcoming commencement of contract talks, a courtship ritual the jilted WGA hopes doesn't quickly lead to quick, sloppy "fucking in the coatcheck room" negotiations that could set a bad precedent for writers. [THR]
· Lovable Access Hollywood mannequin Billy Bush will host this year's Flackies, the 45th annual conferring of the always-hotly-anticipated Publicist Awards. [Variety]

Now that Leno's had his wrist lightly slapped, we can expect that this evening's monologue will substitute verboten scripted material with even more of the mind-numbing, time-killing banter he used to get through his first writerless show ("Hey, Non-Union Audience Member, Tell Me About Your Christmas In Painstaking Detail!") should prove a popular recurring bit), some of which we've helpfully presented in montage form in the above video.

• The Return of Late Night [Defamer]

But where's Johnny Depp, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, Will Smith and Reese Witherspoon?

They've remained deafeningly neutral, as if they were thinking that if they just stayed still and quiet enough, they could wait everybody out and avoid any partisanship.

"They don't want to be branded hypocrites," muses one manager-producer. "Because they're working on movies that are [in production]. Even if there are no writers working on those movies, it's like they're still kind of crossing picket lines to work on them. . . . I think their publicists, smartly, are telling them to not take a side. Do you really gain much by taking a side?"

Indeed, it's hard to see an upside for Julia-and-Will-level megastars in choosing a side in the ugly fight that's torn the industry asunder over the past months; even if you're banking more than $20 million plus some backend-points per picture and have accumulated a fortune that ensures your family would be financially secure even if the strike lasted into the next century, being called a "hypocrite" would still sting even the sturdiest of performers' egos. It's best, then, to avoid the picket lines entirely, bypassing the possibility that as one rushes off to "pick up some more burritos" for hungry protestors, one might suffer the psychological damage of a cynical WGA member snapping back, "Have fun being a cheap media-conglomerate whore, Reese! Keep filling that content pipeline so that we never get back to work!"

• Strike support is not on the A-list [LAT]

"The Writers Guild has reached a binding independent agreement today with Worldwide Pants that will allow Late Night with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson to return to the air with their full writing staffs.

This is a comprehensive agreement that addresses the issues important to writers, particularly New Media. Worldwide Pants has accepted the very same proposals that the Guild was prepared to present to the media conglomerates when they walked out of negotiations on December 7.

Today's agreement dramatically illustrates that the Writers Guild wants to put people back to work, and that when a company comes to the table prepared to negotiate seriously a fair and reasonable deal can be reached quickly.

It's time for NBC-Universal to step up to the plate and negotiate a company-wide deal that will put Jay Leno, who has supported our cause from the beginning, back on the air with his writers."

While it's definitely a step in the right direction, it's worth noting that this "dramatic illustration" took two weeks and several "terse" statements before being hammered out. Should The Tonight Show fail to reach its own agreement, it will be interesting to see how the two longtime late night foes make out in their unfairly matched showdown, with Letterman backed by a trusty writing staff and an all-new arsenal of rejected-holiday-toy-packaging and buoyancy-test-materials, and Leno left to his own, improvisational devices for a monologue's worth of nightly material. This could be a window of opportunity for Stupid Staffer Tricks-conceptualizing Last Call host Carson Daly to inch into the lead in the NBC late night hosting stakes.

• Writers Guild Reaches Agreement With Worldwide Pants [wga.org]

· The WGA and AMPTP tout their favorite year-end polls: the Guild is happy about a USA Today/Gallup survey indicating they lead the public approval race 60%-14%, while the studios prefer one that says the strike has "caused no impact on the viewing habits of 74% of Americans." [Variety]
· The producers of High School Musical hope to recreate their teen-narcotizing magic for MTV with the movie American Mall. [THR]
· Universal is "downplaying expectations" for the debut of Charlie Wilson's War this weekend, anticipating that even the combination of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts will be no match for the new National Treasure movie and the return of Will Smith's I Am Legend. [Variety]

[Photo: Southern Chocolate Fountains]

· Brad Pitt, who recently abandoned Universal's State of Play, is now "in talks" to star in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, a move in which he could be trading a $20 million (plus gross) payday for a chance to earn "nearly no upfront money" in the name of Art. [Variety]
· The FCC votes to ease ownership regulations meant to prevent conglomerates from owning newspapers and broadcast properties in the biggest media markets. Yay for consolidation! [THR]
· Critics in Phoenix and Toronto lavish awards upon No Country For Old Men. [Variety, Variety]

Somewhat disappointingly, there's no footage of cast members like Tom Berenger or Laura Prepon making sympathetic pizza deliveries to the protesting writers, perhaps indicating that the strike has dragged on so long no one can be bothered to take an easy, solidarity-promoting photo-op anymore.

• UNION POWER - WGA Shuts Down A Location Shoot [YouTube]
• Previously: Audience-Disrupting WGA Vigilantes Say They're Not Done Tormenting Talk Show Hosts Quite Yet [Defamer]