Not so, argue SAG reps via henchwoman Nikki Finke, who insists that no vote has yet been cast to remove Allen from the guild's flailing negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Merely a technicality, according to Variety; the board's moderates reportedly have the votes — and moreover the inclination — to pass a resolution nudging Allen, SAG's national executive director, out of contract talks and effectively ending the militant wing's hopes to call for a strike authorization this week. Worsening matters for that Membership First minority, it was one of their own, Seymour Cassel, who broke the news of Allen's ouster to the trades.

His replacement? Your guess is as good as ours; Tom O'Neil seems an enthusiastic, actor-friendly fence-mender with little to do these days. Suggestions?

• SAG's Doug Allen out as negotiator [Variety]

• http://www.link.com">No Vote Yet To Oust SAG's Doug Allen [DHD]

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]