UA, WGA See The Need For Speed

The much-bruited deal between the Writers Guild of America and Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists was formally announced this afternoon by WGA head Patric Verrone:

LOS ANGELES - January 7, 2008 - The Writers Guild of America and legendary United Artists Films have reached a mutually beneficial independent agreement. While the details are not being disclosed in this announcement, the comprehensive agreement addresses the issues important to writers, including New Media.

As a result of this agreement, Writers Guild members will be able to work with United Artists while the strike against other companies continues.

The agreement is unique to United Artists Films and does not involve Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM), a shareholder of United Artists Entertainment.

"United Artists has lived up to its name. UA and the Writers Guild came together and negotiated seriously. The end result is that we have a deal that will put people back to work," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West.

"This agreement is important, unique, and makes good business sense for United Artists. In keeping with the philosophy of its original founders, artists who sought to create a studio in which artists and their creative visions could flourish, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with the WGA," said UA co-owner and CEO Paula Wagner.

Insofar as UA (although it has its own $500 million line of credit from Merrill Lynch) is in many ways beholden to corporate parent MGM, the talk around town is that MGM topper Harry Sloan and his exec confreres can't be pleased that MGM's star mini-major is breaking ranks. It's clear that the WGA's strategy, as outlined perspicaciously by longtime attorney turned writer (and strike captain) Alfredo Barrios on the writers' United Hollywood website, must be to counteract the AMPTP's startegy of "divide and conquer" by playing some "offense" of their own.

It is widely believed that other smaller but significant production entities like The Weinstein Company (whose rogue bosses Harvey and Bob Weinstein have never had a problem going against the grain) and Lions Gate ( a more complicated set=up with a TV component, but fresh from a growth spurt and needing to get product in the pipeline) might sign on under similar terms. (Although the agreement was compared to the Worldwide Pants deal, the guild press release did not state the terms.)

Cruise, with no great love for the system that put him in conflict with Viacom's Sumner Redstone and triggered his move with longtime producing partner Wagner to forge the revival of UA, is himself a bit of, if you will, a maverick. He's also a star and producer who works intensively with screen writers--witness the company's long-lived hook-up with writer eminence Robert Towne, and the company's current collaboration with writer Chris McQuarrie, who spent much time on the set of their Bryan Singr-directed Valkyrie (which recently saw its release date move from summer to November). If the strike isn't settled by then, it's Hollywood doomsday, and the deal with the WGA might thus be seen as merely symbolic. But the stakes for this agreement with the guild are still fairly high--Cruise/Wagner have at least seven pictures in development (no longer including the recently canceled Oliver Stone/Bruce Willis Vietnam story Pinkville), and could now avoid the production drought that may hit the industry in late summer.

Whatever's been said about the company's lackluster initial release, Lions For Lambs, Cruise is exactly the kind of big dog the WGA needs on their side. And with Rick Nicita of CAA minding his business, he may provide an outlet for what is rumored to be an bunch of all-star scribes represented by that agency who are tired of sitting on their hands.

The AMPTP sent a return volley late this afternoon:

January 7, 2008

The following statement was released today by the Alliance of Motion Picture
and Television Producers:
One-off deals do nothing to bring the WGA closer to a permanent solution for working writers. These interim agreements are sideshows and mean only that some writers will be employed at the same time other writers will be picketing. In the end, until the people in charge at WGA decide to focus on the main event rather than these sideshows, the economic harm being caused by the strike will continue.

Meanwhile, NBC began leaking its plan for the televised programming that would replace the star-struck (in other words, they ain't showing up) Golden Globes on January 13. Despite much lamentation from NBC and the show's producer, Dick Clark productions, the writers clearly have no intent to give NBC a break by granting a waiver. The move means tonight's Critics Choice Awards, to be broadcast on VH1 at 9 p.m. (8 Central time), will likely attract more than its usual share of talent and attention.

On the talk show front, rumblings persisted that Jay Leno would be subject to some sort of wrist slap from the guild, even as it was announced that he and Jimmy Kimmel would seek to animate Thursday's telecasts by appearing on each others' shows. If that's excitement some viewers would probably settle for the supposed boredom of the days when those shows were in reruns.

(MGM CEO and Chairman Harry Sloan and United Artsists' Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise at the Hollywood premiere of Lions for Lambs, November, 2007; Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)