A DONE DEAL: WEINSTEINS PACT WITH GUILD (VAR, THR, DHD, NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

As was widely rumored this week, the Weinstein Co. has followed United Artists by inking a nearly identical interim agreement with the Writers Guild of America. The deal also covers Dimension and will allow the pace of activity at the company to resume.

Harvey Weinstein made no bones about his reasons for signing the deal, stressing his empathy for the striking writers and the hardships they've endured over the past 10 weeks, says Variety.

Weinstein stressed that he supported a proposal from George Clooney that a blue-ribbon panel of actors and filmmakers be set up to mediate the dispute.

"If a deal with the writers can be hammered out, other guilds would follow," Weinstein said. In the absence of such a solution, "The price being paid by the community as a whole is unthinkable."

Weinstein told the New York Times, �We need to get people back to work� and added that the AMPTP had reacted �negatively� to his decision to reach an independent agreement.

Meanwhile, he told Nikki Finke, "I did it because it gives me a competitive edge."

Harvey right now is in Los Angeles doing a media blitz via back-to-back breakfasts with the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times and other reporters. Sure the Big Media CEOs are saying he needs to do a WGA side deal to shore up his financially struggling production company. But Harvey tells me, "We are currently a making a shitload of money. All our movies are making money off their videos and DVDs. My flights of fancy are turning out to be oil gushers." (DHD)

Terms of the TWC's interim deal were not disclosed but a company rep said it closely followed the UA pact.

The TWC interim pact probably comes as a greater relief to Weinstein execs, filmmakers and investors than to the Gotham film community as a whole. Along with new scripts coming in, certain key projects in the pipeline will get some wind in their sails, such as "Nine," the Rob Marshall musical adaptation that Michael Tolkin originally scripted. (VAR)

Anthony Minghella, whose Mirage Entertainment recently reupped at TWC, plans to work on rewrites of "Nine."

Another Weinstein Co. project that could benefit from the interim agreement is Stephen Daldry's post-World War II romantic drama "The Reader," which recently recast Kate Winslet in the lead role after Nicole Kidman dropped out because of her pregnancy. Screenwriter David Hare now would be available for any desired changes to his adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel before and during the German shoot, notes the Hollywood Reporter.

Further, Dimension Films has the apocalyptic drama "The Road" heading into production next month, and screenwriter Joe Penhall now will be on hand to help the film live up to Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning original novel.

The Weinstein Co.'s pact with the WGA likely will be superseded by any industrywide agreement the WGA eventually secures, says THR.

As for the AMPTP's reaction to the TWC pact, spokesman Jesse Hiestand reiterated Thursday his previous statement about the UA deal: "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."

The next WGA interim deals could come from year-old Overture Films and Nu Image/Millennium, speculates Variety. Overture's indicated it's open to such a pact, and Nu Image chief Avi Lerner confirmed that he's in discussions to make a WGA deal akin to those brokered with UA and TWC.

Related Links

Weinstein Co. gets interim WGA deal (VAR)
WGA's latest: deal with the Weinstein Co. (THR)
UPDATE: Harvey Weinstein Says WGA Side Deal
Weinstein Company Makes a Deal With Guild Writers (NYT)