Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Guild Throws Down Strike Authorisation Gauntlet, Studios Officially Not Impressed

  Published: October 2, 2007, 3:30 pm

  Tags: Defamer Hollywood, Amptp, Hollywood Strikewatch, Michael Bay, Wga

  Yesterday, the leadership of the Writers Guild sent out an e-mail blast asking its scribe army for strike authorisation, hoping that letting the entire industry know that they've requested the ballistic launch codes from their membership will force the studios to take their just-revived contract negotiations seriously: "Since talks began on

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• Hollywood Strikewatch

  Published: October 5, 2007, 2:15 pm

  Tags: Amptp, Hollywood Strikewatch, Wga

  Just in case you were looking for some cheery news to take with you into the weekend, contract talks between the Writers Guild and the studios ended for the week with these encouraging words from the AMPTP: "We have had six across-the-table sessions and have been met with only silence and stonewalling from the WGA leadership. We have attempted to

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• Trade Roundup: Jake Gyllenhaal: Handsome, Soulful Astronaut

  Published: October 9, 2007, 3:30 pm

  Tags: Casting, Dreamworks, Hollywood Strikewatch, Jake Gyllenhaal, Lisa Kudrow, Michael Cera, Pablo Escobar, Trade Roundup

  Jake Gyllenhaal joins director Doug Liman on DreamWorks' Untitled Moon Project, in which Gyllenhaal is dispatched to populate a lunar colony with a super-race of dreamy-eyed pioneers. [Variety] · Lisa Kudrow joins the cast of "let's just squeeze in one more job before the strike" flick Hotel for Dogs, joining fellow

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• Hollywood Grabs Ankles, Awaits Seemingly Inevitable Strike-Buggering

  Published: October 9, 2007, 3:00 pm

  Tags: Amptp, Hollywood Strikewatch, Wga

  more committed to destroying Hollywood contain their fair share of public posturing, that knowledge doesn't stop our sphincters from reflexively tightening following each bellicose statement lamenting the inevitability of a disastrous

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• Trade Roundup: Kiefer Sutherland Accepts '24'-Friendly Jail Sentence

  Published: October 10, 2007, 4:30 pm

  Tags: Abc, Casting, Cavemen, Fox, Hollywood Strikewatch, Kiefer Sutherland, Trade Roundup, Warner Bros

  be a breeze. [THR] Hollywood Out of Ideas, Indestructible Cyborgs Edition: Warner Bros. snags the rights to Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, hoping to reboot the franchise with a new storyline that span over three films. Cameron Diaz to star.

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• Trade Roundup: WGA Fires Warning Shot Above Studios' Heads

  Published: October 11, 2007, 2:30 pm

  Tags: Bionic Woman, Cbs, George Clooney, Hollywood Strikewatch, Leonardo Dicaprio, Nbc, Private Practice, Trade Roundup

  funny." [Variety] · Hollywood's dreamy consciences George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio may team up for Warner Bros.'s adaptation of Farragut North, a play loosely based on the Howard Dean campaign. (Sorry Jake, torture-lovers not invited to the party.)

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• Writerless Talk Show Hosts And Unemployed Agents: Looking At The Coming Strike's Real Victims

  Published: October 15, 2007, 2:45 pm

  Tags: Agents, Hollywood Strikewatch

  commitment to destroying Hollywood with their unchecked greed. In his column on a possible strike's impact on the TV landscape, Scott Collins travels back to 1988 in his Labor Strife Wayback Machine to see if there are any lessons to be learned from the network schedules resulting from that year's crippling work stoppage: In fact, the

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• Trade Roundup: Studios Upset The WGA Doesn't Want Writers To Work While On Strike

  Published: October 16, 2007, 3:00 pm

  Tags: Abc, Amptp, Casting, Hollywood Strikewatch, Trade Roundup, Weinsteins, Wga

  · Madonna signs away her musical life to Live Nation, which is betting that the artist still has a few highly profitable, perfectly calculated provocations left in her. [Variety] Hollywood Out of Ideas, Chewing Your Own Cenobite Cud Edition: Clive Barker will produce a remake of his 1987 horror flick Hellraiser for Dimension. [Variety]

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• Studios Give Up Crazy Residual-Adjustment Proposal, Show First SIgn They Might Not Be Nuts Enough To Blow Up Hollywood After All

  Published: October 16, 2007, 2:30 pm

  Tags: Amptp, Hollywood Strikewatch, Wga

  Have the studios finally decided it's time to stomp out the flaming bag of crazy they've allowed to burn on the negotiating room floor throughout their contract talks with the WGA? In a statement posted to the AMPTP's website, they've announced that they're going to drop their plan to recoup their costs before mailing out the little green

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• Fox Preparing For Possible Strike By Pissing Off Its Assistants

  Published: October 19, 2007, 4:00 pm

  Tags: Assistants, Fox, Hollywood Strikewatch, Wga

  As we all await the dread-inducing tolling of the bell atop WGA headquarters that will indicate the union has received strike authorisation from its membership, it seems like a good time consider the effect that the looming work stoppage is already having on the call-rolling underclass that allows the town to function. Over at Fishbowl LA, a

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• Trade Roundup: Angry Birds, Crazy Widows, And BFFs

  Published: October 19, 2007, 3:00 pm

  Tags: Casting, Cbs, Hollywood Strikewatch, Naomi Watts, Rachel Ray, Trade Roundup, Universal, Valerie Bertinelli, Wga

  Naomi Watts is on board to star in Universal's remake of The Birds, which, thankfully, the studio isn't rushing into production, allowing time for a possible rewrite of the script still in development that could further address the avian-backstory problems they've previously identified in the Hitchcock original. [Variety] Universal hires

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• Viva Laughlin Cancelled

  Published: October 22, 2007, 5:00 pm

  Tags: Cancellationwatch, Cbs, Hollywood Strikewatch, Les Moonves, Viva Laughlin

  We've just obtainted the new draft of the planned Les Moonves ad to be published in tomorrow's trades: "Hey, writers - You know what? Fuck you. I'll cancel my disappointing Fall season myself, bit by bit. Goodbye, Viva Laughlin! By the time you go on strike, there won't be anything left for you to walk out on. Love, Les. PS - Tell Patric Verrone

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• Today In Sabre Rattling: TV Execs Secretly Hoping Writers Wipe Out Their Crappy Fall Schedules

  Published: October 22, 2007, 4:00 pm

  Tags: Hollywood Strikewatch, Les Moonves, Wga

  Early Friday evening, the WGA announced that it had received strike authorisation from 90.3 percent of its voting members, a victory the organisation's leadership touted as an "historic demonstration of unity." What the Guild might not realise, however, is that when it returns to the negotiating table today, emboldened by the ability to take to

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• The Writers' Strike, Coming To A Halloween Costume Party Near You

  Published: October 23, 2007, 3:45 pm

  Tags: Halloween, Hollywood Strikewatch

  For those uninspired by our previous Halloween costume suggestions (honestly, we didn't really expect you to go around terrifying children in a Teri Hatcher mask), a thread developing on MetaFilter since yesterday could provide you with a more abstract, but no less timely, alternative that will make you the envy of every terrified, sporadically

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• Strikewatch

  Published: October 23, 2007, 3:30 pm

  Tags: Amptp, Hollywood Strikewatch, Tbrief, Wga

  Just in case you need a little extra help soiling up the pants on your writers' strike costume, here's the best of the public communication resulting from yesterday's "bargaining" session. From the WGA: "We have no intention of discussing the producers' rollback proposals. Not now, not ever. The producers asked to take Tuesday off to caucus." And

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