• The Wrap writes of the challenges facing AMC in following up on the success of its two original shows, Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Since the pair of critical darlings launched, the network's development team has changed and this weekend's debut of The Prisoner marks the first try-out for the new execs, with two new series coming up behind it. While the kiniptions Mad Men provokes in the media have always been hugely disproportionate to its raw audience size, which is generally in the one to two million range, Men's success is due to a little fluke of its audience demographics. The Wrap notes that more than half of its viewers earn six figure incomes, making it pretty much the official show of American rich people. But while Men and Breaking are bringing in cash for the network, the piece notes that between them they can only produce 26 episodes a year, a long, long way from the sort of programming pipeline needed to take the network to the next level, revenue-wise. And what with the economic downturn, America's rich have a lot more time to dedicate to their Tivo's and their needs must be fed. [The Wrap]

• Fox has re-signed Emma Watts to serve as its President of Production for the next three years, a move which Variety says, "keeps Fox as a bastion of stability at a time when studios are rife with executive shakeups." [Variety]

• Charlie's Angels may be coming home to the little screen. ABC is reportedly on the brink of a deal to bring the story of three little girls who went to the police academy back full circle to where it all began for them. Josh Friedman, who wrote Fox's Terminator:The Sarah Connor Chronicles is on board to executive produce the show. And now they work for him. [Variety]

• American box offices are bracing this weekend for a medium to large-sized tsunami of cash unleashed by the release of 2012. The disaster epic is expected to take in between $50 - $55 million this weekend with no other major film entering wide release against it. The film enters the marketplace with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 38 which The Wrap points out is an improvement over the 9 percent positive rating of director Roland Emmerich's previous film 10,000 B.C. [The Wrap]

• The Vice-Chairman of Lions Gate said that his company would be interested in buying MGM but "It's all about price," that is, if they can get the James Bond franchise for very little money, sure they'd be happy to do that. While trumpeting the news the LA Times makes the "imagine that/you don't say" point that, every company in Hollywood would be willing to absorb MGM and Bond if they can get them for nothing or next to it. [LA Times]

• The Who have been booked to entertain tens of millions of drunken, nacho-engorged football fans when they play the halftime show of this season's Superbowl. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Despite SAG's rejection of proposed terms, AFTRA's membership ratified a new contract with video game makers, taking a 2.5 percent pay raise for its actors. [Hollywood Reporter]

Steve Carell will star in another sadsack man comedy. This one is called Dumped and is about a man who is... dumped. [Variety] Kevin Spacey will star in and produce a new indie comedy called Father of Invention, about a crazy inventor's fall from grace and subsequent comeback. A man whose biggest credit is directing a Larry the Cable Guy movie will helm. [Variety]

O.C. and Gossip Girl blunderkind Josh Schwartz will be making his directorial film debut with an adaptation of Jay McInerney's landmark 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. There was a Michael J. Fox movie based on the book made about twenty years ago, but... oh well. Schwartz's Lt. Riker, Stephanie Savage, will co-produce. [Variety] Pineapple Express buddies James Franco and Danny McBride will team up again for a new comedy, also to be directed by art-house auteur turned sly comedian, David Gordon Green. It's set in medieval times. Its title? Your Highness. Sigh. [Variety]

AMC, flush with successes Mad Men and Breaking Bad, is now turning itself into a regular old TV network. By developing reality programming! They've got a show called True West in the works. No, it's not about a production of the Sam Shepard play. It's about modern-day cowboys navigating the terrain as their industry fades. Sounds like a riot. [Variety] Fox, meanwhile, has rehired Wanda Sykes to host a Saturday night talk show. It'll sort of be a panel series, like the Bill Maher show. Hmm. [Variety]

SAG and AFTRA signed off on a three year commercials contract early this morning. The agreement includes a $36 million increase in wage rates and a $21 increase in contributions toward both guilds' health plans. [THR]

Kevin Rahm, who you'd recognize from a bunch of stuff, Rob Huebel, who you'd recognize from Human Giant, and Alison Brie, who you'd recognize as Pete's wife on Mad Men, have all landed TV pilots. Sadly, none of them sound good. [THR] Veteran CNN producer Kathy O'Hearn will be teaming up with veteran correspondent Christiane Amanpour for a new half-hour news program for the network. [THR]

And The Simpsons will be immortalized in postage stamp form, the Postal Service (the government thing, not the band) announced today. They'll be unveiled next week, timed well with the series' 20th anniversary. Sheesh. [THR]

Among the recent shows that have gone with AFTRA are the CW's 90210 and Reaper; CBS's new sitcom Gary Unmarried; and two shows just picked up to series at ABC: comedy Better Off Ted and hourlong The Unusuals. ABC's recently wrapped drama pilot Prince of Motor City is also AFTRA. ...

If SAG called a strike, even a dual SAG-AFTRA member would be obligated to continue working if under contract to an AFTRA-covered show.

Beyond the short-term strike threat, studio brass say they've generally grown wary of SAG and its recent management turmoil and bitter factional fighting.

The AFTRA alliance is technically more expensive for the producers, who are buying into the Web/video residuals established as part of the new contract; SAG's expired terms still apply until a new deal is ratified. But SAG higher-ups couldn't care less anyway, with one exec noting that 95% of primetime (including anything shot on film) belongs to SAG; that's just what "people are comfortable working with." But really, AFTRA is nothing — wait until these guys face the mounting Craigslist lobby gaining traction at MTV. Now those guys are hungry.

• SAG stalemate aids AFTRA [Variety]

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]

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]

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!

The week began with the latest [NOUN] between SAG and its former [GERUND] partners at AFTRA, whose recent prime-time [NOUN] with the studios was the target of a [ADJECTIVE] SAG rally on Monday. "Instead of using every day it has this [NOUN] to aggressively and [ADVERB] negotiate for its members, the SAG committee spends days in internal [NOUN], planning the 'Vote No!' campaign, staging [PLURAL NOUN], putting staff on the marching line and spending our [ADJECTIVE] money trying to defeat it," AFTRA negotiating committee chairman Matt Kimbrough said in a [NOUN].

A day later, SAG executive director Alan Rosenberg told Variety that contract negotiations had been [ADJECTIVE] since AFTRA made its own [NOUN] with the majors. A deal seems unlikely by [PROPER NOUN] 30, he added. Among the continuing [ADJECTIVE] points: new-media jurisdiction, product placement, force majeure and DVD residuals.

Meanwhile, the AMPTP is standing by its [NOUN] that SAG won't get a [ADJECTIVE] deal than AFTRA. The latest reports have the studios [GERUND] the news [NOUN] to accuse SAG of stalling negotiations until July 7, after the results of AFTRA's own vote are [PAST-TENSE VERB]. "We hope that Rosenberg's [NOUN] does not signal the intention of SAG's Hollywood leaders to bring our industry to a [NOUN]. We remain committed to [GERUND] as hard as we can to reach our fifth [ADJECTIVE] agreement of 2008 by June 30," the studios announced in a statement.

Meanwhile, SAG has yet to seek a [ADJECTIVE] authorization from its 120,000 [PLURAL NOUN]. Follow up with us again next week if/when any progress is [PAST-TENSE VERB]!

• Studios accuse SAG of stalling talks [Variety]

The AMPTP apparently relented on the issue of establishing an online clip library, which, as of last weekend, remained one of the negotiations' primary sticking points. AFTRA's members (who still need to ratify the contract) will retain consent over the usage of their work on the Web, though Variety reports that the new deal "calls for [AFTRA] and the companies to 'develop a mechanism' by which performers can provide or withhold consent for non-promotional use of clips from TV libraries."

AFTRA currently represents about a dozen prime-time shows including Curb Your Enthusiasm and 'Til Death, but that number could climb if SAG takes to the picket line this summer. And it's certainly possible: When SAG's previous negotiations broke down earlier this month, leaders cried they were within a few hours of a deal. That was later discovered to be untrue. Listen for more saber-rattling as the parties reconvene in the month ahead.

• AFTRA, majors agree deal [Variety]
• Biz watches AFTRA-studio cliffhanger [THR]

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]

"I think it's insanity that we're not able to finish our negotiations and that the unions are being pitted against each other," [Allen] told Daily Variety. "We ought to be able to figure out a way to do this together, particularly since we've done so much of the heavy lifting. It's in the best interests of the memberships." ...

Allen warned the majors at the end of Tuesday's talks that it would become more difficult to make a deal with SAG if the guild were pushed aside in favor of AFTRA. "We'll lose the momentum we have at negotiations, and members' positions will become more entrenched," he explained Wednesday.

Dragging your cross from the prop department to the conference room isn't quite what we'd call "heavy lifting," but we admire Allen's dramatic protestations nonetheless. Especially when Fox chief Peter Chernin was on his first-quarter earnings call across town, spinning himself into a lather over the "de facto actors strike" such SAG uncertainty implies:

"It is difficult for anyone to start a movie now," because a formal strike would interrupt it, he said on his company's earnings call following improved fiscal third-quarter earnings driven by strong TV results. "It's a really bad thing for the industry," especially after an "extremely devastating" writers strike, Chernin said.

Asked about producers' strategy in their AFTRA talks compared with SAG talks, he said they are not looking for quick deals with anyone group over another. Instead, "we seek fair deals for everyone," he added.

And failing that? Get ready for American Idol: The Movie, we guess.

• AFTRA nixes SAG request for delay [Variety]

How does Rosenberg keep it all straight? The same way we do: One enemy at a time.

Take the rebel sect of SAG members including Bacon, Sheen, Sally Field and nearly 1,500 others, who last week petitioned leadership for "qualified voting" — kind of an Animal Farm-lite approach that would consolidate power among members who work more regularly than others. Variety's Dave McNary notes the proposal would likely have lessened the chance for a strike when the contract runs out June 30, and indeed, Rosenberg and Co. barely acknowledged the petition before passing it to what one dissenter called "the committee where things go die."

The SAG boss sought additional leverage over the weekend with a letter to his general membership, laying down the hard line for the negotiations launching Tuesday. Stop us if you've heard this one before:

"We have to negotiate fair payments for all new media formats to help us expand opportunities for middle class actors to get more work, just as the employers are expanding their opportunities to earn even more revenue," Rosenberg said. "We simply can't wait until this boat has sailed. We need to be on the boat—and it's leaving now."

Hence tomorrow's big march to the Port of Los Angeles, right? Well, not really. Both the DGA and striking WGA agreed in February that this "new media boat" was moored enough to settle for something a little less: Regular voyages through the studios' books as new media revenues take shape. Of course, the AMPTP has already put its own foot down emphasizing that's all SAG will get, and even big-shot attorney and DGA adviser Ken Ziffren came out with his own warning for Rosenberg:

"It's better right now to have access to the information that's needed to try to track the new-media industries and their business patterns. ... If the other guilds can understand that concept, then we can get back to work again in full force and follow the trends that the industry may take in new media. And so that is, to me, the major short-term issue and hopefully that will get resolved before June 30, or long before, if possible."

Translation: Please don't embarrass us in front of our membership by negotiating something juicier.

Anyway, assuming AFTRA doesn't come back to the table with SAG, we'd think Rosenberg would settle before AFTRA sits down with the studios April 28. Sure, he'll lose a whole two months of barking about a strike in the press, but it's either that or, as we mentioned a few weeks back, watch AFTRA usurp a share of SAG influence on the job market. And we doubt anyone at SAG wants to see that boat sail.

• SAG spurns proposal to limit voting [Variety]
• Rosenberg sends letter to SAG members [Variety]

We remain committed to ensuring that the rewards of our success are distributed fairly among all of our industry's talent, so that we all have appropriate and meaningful stakes in the outcome of our work.

Fortunately, the three labor agreements already reached — with the DGA, the WGA, and the AFTRA Network Code — provide the new framework for our industry's economic future. We hope that our negotiations with SAG and AFTRA will bolster this new economic framework, enabling all of us to share equitably in the success of new media and to respond with creativity and swiftness to market changes. If our industry relies on this new framework, we can all avoid more harmful and unnecessary strikes.

We obviously take great joy in observing such dick-swinging, gun-pointing swagger in advance of the unions' April 15 talks — particularly the addition of "fortunately," which is the only word left from the original letter draft obtained by Defamer: "Fortunately, because we have an 11 o'clock tee time and plan to screw you anyway, we have attached 'sign-here' stickies where you should just throw your names. We've included a self-addressed, stamped envelope for your convenience. In case you happen to read the contract, please call our lawyers with any questions or impotent, thinly veiled strike threats. We've got a whole season of The Moment of Truth ready to go just in case. See you on the set! xo, AMPTP."

• Open Letter from the AMPTP [AMPTP via Variety]

[The pair] appeared at a news conference to build awareness for the "March From Hollywood to the Docks" that will start April 15 next to the La Brea Tar Pits and conclude two days later with a rally at the Port of Los Angeles.

During Tuesday's news conference, Rosenberg and Morgan refrained from any attacks and professed the importance of union solidarity in pushing forward on bread-and-butter issues such as wages, health-care coverage and retirement. Morgan, who's also veep of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, noted that AFTRA has already negotiated its network code and sound recordings deals this year.

Asked about the contradiction of professing unity in the wake of the ongoing jurisdictional battle, Morgan said, "This is a really good example of us being civil to each other while trying to do what's best for our members and not attacking each other."

It was the least of the shit-eating Morgan could do as the unions' apocalyptic "jurisdictional battle" also came into sharper relief on Tuesday, when the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers shrugged off conventional wisdom and agreed to start contract renegotiations with SAG on April 15. Thus outmaneuvered once more by its glitzier cousin, and without an AMPTP meeting of his own, Morgan quietly assigned an intern to spend the remainder of the day plotting alternate routes to the Port as part of his highly civil new "We'll Get There Faster on Western Ave." strategy.

• SAG to begin talks with majors [Variety]

In the wake of Saturday's decision by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to ditch its longstanding bargaining partnership with SAG on the feature-primetime contract, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers held off Monday on deciding which union it will sit down with first.

SAG, which earlier spurned offers to start negotiations in March, now contends it should be first up because it covers all film work and the lion's share of TV work done by thesps. SAG prexy Alan Rosenberg noted in a message to members that studios want to end the uncertainty over a possible strike, further motivating the AMPTP to start talks as soon as possible as the June 30 contract expiration looms.

The political dynamics here are much uglier than earlier squabbles, and they have potentially dire consequences. AFTRA, which represents a minority of actors on cable and network television, has basically wanted to break off from its SAG partnership for years. Rosenberg, despite warnings from A-list membership like George Clooney and Meryl Streep, delayed negotiating a new deal until producers would be forced to play ball or face a work stoppage. That misfire gave AFTRA the out it needed to both split with SAG and, through what looks like a good-faith gesture toward producers, earn increased presence among SAG-heavy television programs.

How? Rosenberg's arrogance will likely send producers to bed with AFTRA first, and the terms of that settlement will dictate what SAG stands to gain — if anything — as the June 30 deadline approaches. Without the bargaining leverage it shared with AFTRA, SAG's only remaining alternative is a strike — the likelihood of which just boomed as the union awaits the AFTRA deal. So you get a labor stoppage and a thespian civil war all in one.

We're not sprinting for high land just yet, which is probably why we can still hear whispers about sketchy studios preemptively pushing an increasing number of film projects toward development limbo. Be sure to tell us if you've heard the same.

• SAG sees Leverage Lost [Variety]

· 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]