From today's http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2007-11-06/
: Seeming to confirm that he and Steven Spielberg will cut off relations with Viacom and its Paramount and DreamWorks studios when their contracts expire next year, David Geffen has launched a broadside at Sumner Redstone in an interview set to appear in Vanity Fair. "I don't care for Sumner's behavior," Geffen said in the interview, "and I have that in common with a great many people in the entertainment business. I don't like the way he treats people. Most of all, nobody is going to treat me or my partner [Steven Spielberg] in that manner and stay in business with us. Nobody." Speaking "for background," one Redstone adviser told the magazine that the reason for Geffen's remarks is that "next year Paramount will have the hot hand. DreamWorks won't. Look at the slate [of planned movies]. Everything good is coming from Paramount. The DreamWorks films don't look anywhere near as good. So if you're Geffen and you want to negotiate, you want to do it now. He's looking for any leverage he can find on Sumner." Geffen denied that he was looking for such negotiating leverage. "I chose to sell this company to Paramount. It has turned out to be a poor choice," he said. "Redstone, he is accustomed to bullying people. And I will not be bullied. There is no fight I will run from. I am absolutely unafraid of Sumner Redstone." Nevertheless, the magazine reported that as it was going to press it received a phone call from Geffen, who remarked. "Sumner called up, he apologized to me for anything he said that may have upset me. I apologized for things that may have upset him. And we cleared the air."

Viacom's profits may be up 80%, but I'm pretty confident in assuming that Karaszewski's still getting significant checks in the mail from the films he's made.

Meanwhile, crew members and the employees of many vendors that service the production industry are bracing for an involuntary vacation in the coming weeks once the last scripts are finally shot. Why anyone would be okay with this is a gigantic mystery to me.

Because it takes two to strike.

Meanwhile, maybe Karaszewski has man-boobs?

It's nice that he's rallying with the troops, but I'm not sure that a millionaire like Karaszewski is the ideal posterboy for the plight of the screenwriter.

I'm not trying to be a poster child for anything. I'm supporting my union. There was a story about the strike in the LA Times on Saturday and a few pages away was a story about Viacom's profits shooting up 80 percent. My wife pointed out the absurdity. This strike could be over immediately if common sense prevailed. There are many members of the WGA with only a few film credits or one season of a television show. They need residuals to survive. That is not hyperbole.

Wells to Karaszewski: Hey, Larry...what about my snapping that red T-shirt for real? Say the time.

Karaszewski to Wells: I just sent you a couple emails.

And I love this "Oh why should the millionaires care?" bullshit. As if having success makes you incapable of remembering your struggles, empathy or responsibilty.

Exactly, Christian. Having someone of Larry's stature on the picket line actually demonstrates the across-the-board solidarity of the writers and other talent ...

Why does the photoshop shirt have boobs?

The writers are too concerned with their own struggles, empathy and responsibility, and not enough with those of the thousands of their co-workers who are proper fucked while they grandstand around the studios and get on TV. They're angling to get exponential payment for work done in the past, and to do so they're willing to subvert the ability of others to get paid for work they would currently be doing...I just don't get how this aspect of the issue can be ignored.

The writers deserve at least most of what they're asking for, and I admit I don't exactly have a better idea on how to attain it. But taking hostage the livelihoods of so many other people - who don't stand to benefit in the slightest if the guild gets what it's looking for - strikes me as a petulant, no-class move. Particularly when - unless I'm mistaken - a large portion of the picketers are still being paid as they strike from outstanding residuals.

Nice T-shirt.

Keep up the strike.

Gabriel: Why should the writers care, when the studios are willing to shoot as much as they can without them? Hell, most of the actors who join SAG get better deals than the writers, regardless of their actual talen.

Because this isn't about the studios - who the writers' grievance is with. It's about everyone else who works to give life to the writers' vision and is now getting fucked by them - who their grievance is not with.

So, what are you saying, Gabriel? The writers should just roll over and take whatever the studios feel like giving them?

I'm absolutely on the writers' side, and I wasn't saying that Larry K. shouldn't join them in their protests. I too find it admirable that he is doing so. I'm only pointing out that I don't think that it's in the union's best interest to let the media co-opt a highly successful screenwriter like Larry as the face of this protest. His piles of money may make him less sympathetic.

remember that all rich screenwriters are only an accountant with a plane ticket to Brazil away from the poor house.

It's nice to have an extra check arrive every few months remind you that your work is still entertaining the masses after all these years.

This is an industry that takes pleasure in eating you up, screwing you over and profiting for years. Why shouldn't the writer get a fair share of a series they wrote that earn fat dollars for the studio for 40 years plus?

It's a shame that productions have to be shut down, but that's the price of doing business.

They should get a fair share. They should also find a way to accomplish that without boning the rest of the industry.

The idea that the studios' way of doing things is taking clothes off the backs of the writers' children falls to pieces when you consider that their strike is taking clothes off the backs of their crew members' children. And striking so you can get something that is a "nice" reminder that one's work is "still entertaining the masses after all these years" makes it sound like a vain luxury, so I'd refrain from describing it that way in front of below-the-line types.

So Gabriel, who exactly should be allowed to strike since any strike from any group of workers would have the same effect on other jobs.

But if the writers step up, that encourages other unions, and also forces the studios to reconsider next time they decide to shiv their way through a negotiation.

I thought this SNL bit summed it up nicely:

http://defamer.com/hollywood/short-ends/ass-cancer-wishes-319281.php?autoplay=true

I'm all for people getting there fair share, but when i hear writers saying that many of their fellow brothers & sisters only have one credit and therefore SURVIVE on residuals, I have to say maybe it's time for another gig.

Well christian, the bottom line is that I don't support striking. If there was such a thing as a self-contained strike - one that hurt only The Man - then I'd be all for that. But shutting down an industry just to make sure your less-successful union brothers are getting paid when they're NOT working is....I mean, come on. How can that even be rationalized, let alone justified?

If you're going to take other people out of work as a means to get what you want, then the issue at hand better be safety conditions on the job site. In my opinion.

is there a strike that didn't somehow hurt another group? Did anyone get hurt by the hockey labor dispute? Anyone who worked at the arena.

The crew people are in line to get screwed by the studios too. I've worked way too many gigs lately where the production company has gone out of its way to screw us on our rates. "You wanna or not?" is the attitude from Fox. Think of the crew members that got screwed on Kid Nation when they had them shooting longer than agreed times. The studios have little respect for the crew. If it was up to the industry, they'd just nab college interns to work all the jobs. That'd save production costs.

"But shutting down an industry just to make sure your less-successful union brothers are getting paid when they're NOT working is....I mean, come on. How can that even be rationalized, let alone justified?"

Michael Eisner is that you?

Okay, yeah, you got me.....I'm Michael Eisner. I go online under the name Gabriel so I can talk dirty to 12 year old boys.

Jeff: "I'm only pointing out that I don't think that it's in the union's best interest to let the media co-opt a highly successful screenwriter like Larry as the face of this protest. His piles of money may make him less sympathetic."

I don't ever recall Ed Wood and 'Larry Flynt being box office smashes. Problem Child and 1408 appears to be as far as he's gotten in the industry, but that's not really a lot of dough, after everyone's been paid. Now a better example would be Jay Leno. But that guy started out small-time, too, so I'd imagine he knows where they're coming from more than anyone.

Gabriel: "They should also find a way to accomplish that without boning the rest of the industry."

The only boning in the industry is from the top.

"The idea that the studios' way of doing things is taking clothes off the backs of the writers' children falls to pieces when you consider that their strike is taking clothes off the backs of their crew members' children."

Sorry, but the crew members owe the writers for having work in the first place. People who go to film school are a dime a dozen nowadays, and being able to master three different cameras isn't nearly as important as being able to sell a pitch.

"And striking so you can get something that is a "nice" reminder that one's work is "still entertaining the masses after all these years" makes it sound like a vain luxury, so I'd refrain from describing it that way in front of below-the-line types."

So when studios extend copyrights to 75 years, it's ok, but when writers want to profit off of that extended copyright, it's greedy?

"But shutting down an industry just to make sure your less-successful union brothers are getting paid when they're NOT working is....I mean, come on. How can that even be rationalized, let alone justified?"

It can be justified in the sense that, when they are working, they're not getting paid?