It seems that way before the Great WGA Strike of 2007, there was a problem regarding screenwriting credits between George Clooney and the Writer’s Guild of America. Clooney, who’s upcoming movie Leatherheads was based on a 17-year-old script he came across, rewrote the script, almost completely from scratch. But for whatever reason, the WGA denied him a writing credit!

From Variety:

Aside from bringing back pro football’s formative days, “Leatherheads” might be remembered as the film that permanently drove a wedge between George Clooney and the Writers Guild of America.

Clooney went financial core last fall, after the WGA decided 2-1 in a credit arbitration vote that only Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly deserved screen credit on the picture that Universal opens today.

Going fi-core means a member is still technically a member of the WGA, but has limited rights within the guild. Fi-core members have to pay dues and are covered by the health and pension plans. Once you elect to go fi-core, the decision is irreversible.

“When your own union doesn’t back what you’ve done, the only honorable thing to do is not participate,” said Clooney, who stressed he made no attempt to exclude Brantley and Reilly.

Clooney says he would have quit the WGA altogether if he could, but that would have prevented him from working on all WGA-covered productions. He says he wanted nothing more to do with the WGA but didn’t want to be hampered in his ability in writing scripts.

As for “Leatherheads,” Clooney took a languishing 17-year old project and got a greenlight after personally giving the script a major overhaul that transformed it into a screwball comedy. He says he felt he’d written all but two of the film’s scenes.

While he agreed that Brantley and Reilly deserved first position credit for hatching the idea and characters, he was incensed enough by the WGA arbitration process to go financial core, which rendered him a dues-paying non-voting member.

The WGA had no comment about Clooney’s decision.

Clooney didn’t appeal the WGA ruling, and kept his action quiet because the WGA was gearing up for a strike at the time. He didn’t want the filing seen as him having split ranks with the union over the labor dispute.

Clooney has been a vocal advocate for urging studios and unions to resolve their differences as soon as possible; he joined Tom Hanks, Sally Field and others at a testy February meeting with SAG leaders in order to urge the guild to start bargaining ASAP.

To Grant Heslov, who partners with Clooney in the production shingle Smoke House, and who was a producer with Clooney on “Leatherheads,” the fi-core move was simply a reaction to a bad WGA decision.

“This script that Duncan and Rick wrote sat languid until after we finished ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ and George wanted to do something lighter,” Heslov said. “George liked ‘Leatherheads,’ but said it never felt quite right. He took it to Italy with him, and I remember when he called to say he thought he’d solved it. One thing that you clearly see, if you read the original, the subsequent drafts and then his draft, is that he wrote the majority of the film. When I got the call about the decision that he wasn’t getting credit, I was shocked. We both thought Duncan and Rick would get first position credit, which they deserved. But this wasn’t right.”

WGA requires directors who seek writing credit to be responsible for 50% of the script. Heslov said Clooney kept his displeasure quiet because he didn’t want to be viewed as a credit hog since, after all, he is the star, director and a producer of “Leatherheads.” But Clooney confirmed his exit to Daily Variety.

Heslov said this wasn’t about ego, pointing out that when Universal sent a notice that the film would bear the credit “A George Clooney Film,” Clooney nixed it. And while Clooney and Heslov shared an Oscar nomination for original screenplay on “Good Night, and Good Luck,” Clooney and ex-partner Steven Soderbergh removed their names from the producer roster, leaving Heslov the sole nominee when the Clooney-directed pic became a best picture candidate.

“He doesn’t take possessory credit because he believes this is a collaborative business and he’s not a guy who needs credit,” Heslov said. “Financial core was his form of protest, but when he did it, he didn’t want it public. We’re both big union guys. Between us, we belong to 12 unions. I think they made the wrong decision, and he was within his rights to respond by going financial core.”

By going fi-core, writers withhold the portion of dues spent by the WGA on non-contract activities — while still being able to write scripts. Fi-core writers pay dues that are 1.9% less than regular members; they also can’t vote on contracts or in any WGA election.

Under WGA rules, if the director or producer of a film is proposed for final credit, an automatic arbitration is triggered.

This is really quite interesting; the whole basis, the very foundation, of the WGA is to give credit where credit is due. And here we have George Clooney, having rewritten practically an entire script, getting NO credit whatsoever. AND, to put salt in the wound, Clooney’s protest (going Fi-Core) is weak at best; the ultimate protest would’ve been to quit the WGA altogether, but unfortunately, if he ever wants to write another movie for a major studio, he is FORCED to remain part of the WGA.

And they say the Mafia doesn’t exist…

This is an interesting way to let people know that they can purchase Lionsgate movies on iTunes (which is Lionsgate’s intent). It reminds me of the EnhancedCDs that made a blip a few years back (apparently some are still being made) that contained bonus materials like music videos or fan club and concert information.

And of course, this will give Apple an extra boost in its nascent rentals business, as I’m sure anyone who happens upon the iTunes store will be told about the rental section as well.

This along with an article in this month’s Wired bring up interesting ideas about the nature of how companies will make money. Wired’s article discusses the surge in “free” products, which are subsidized by other items one might purchase (for example, if you subscribe to cable, you get a free DVR if you sign up for add-on channels). With Lionsgate throwing in a free iTunes movie (albeit for the same movie you got the DVD of), rumors of all major studios reducing the number of movies they make (this was discussed before the WGA strike) and the recent defeat of Blu-ray over HD-DVD, I think we’re in for an interesting year in movie promotions.

Commit this mug to memory. Within a couple of years, it’ll be everywhere.

For those of you who don’t know who this is, this is Anton Yelchin, a fresh, up and coming actor who so far as been featured in movies like House of D, Alpha Dog, and Charlie Bartlett, which opens this week.

There are very few actors I get excited over, and few of THOSE over actual acting prowess. There are very, very few people who you’ll hear me say, “So-and-so’s movie is coming out soon, I can’t wait to see it.” I’m am now officially adding Anton Yelchin to that list.

I didn’t get to see House of D, even though I really wanted to (it being David Duchovny’s directorial debut, someone I’m a fan of), but I was more than eager to watch Alpha Dog, and wasn’t disappointed (okay, I was, but at the lukewarm reception and did poorly in the box office, not the movie itself). Alpha Dog is based on the true story of a young teenager who’s “accidentally” kidnapped and ends up murdered by a group of wannabe thugs. Anton’s (playing the ill-fated teenager) performance was great throughout, so much so that when he meets his fate, my eyes gets wet and I feel nothing but disgust for those idiots perpetrating the crime. The first time I saw it, it was so overpowering that I just felt numb at the end, I didn’t want anything to have to do with anything.

Thankfully, Anton’s new movie, Charlie Bartlett, isn’t nearly as depressing. In it, he plays the title character, who becomes the most popular kid in school by becoming a pseudo-psychiatrist, helping kids out with their emotional problems (and pescribing medication if necessary). While the plot of the movie is looser and less dramatic than that of Alpha Dog, Anton still delivers an incredibly detailed performance, which really shows his range, sometimes within one scene alone. To hold his own against a veteran and highly-praised actor like Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t hurt, either.

He also did an episode of Law & Order a while back, which I give him props for for tackling such a demanding character at such a young age; he played a teenager who becomes obsessed with stalking and killing hookers. He was only 15-16 at the time he shot the episode.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not too crazy about a few of Anton’s next ventures (mainly playing a young Chekov in the upcoming Star Trek restart movie), but I’m predicting that in just a few years, we’ll not only be seeing more of Anton, but he’ll start making some serious moves, including picking up a couple major awards here and there.

“That is good weed… that is good weed… THAT IS GOOD WEED!”

Not quite.

This week alone, Hollywood studios have been slapped with THREE humongous lawsuits (more like 2 big ones and one mediocre, but publicity-worthy).

First up is New Line Cinema, which has barely settled their lawsuit with director Peter Jackson mere weeks ago over the Lord of the Rings trilogy (he sued New Line because he claimed they weren’t giving him all the back-end points they agreed on) and is now facing a pseudo-shut down as it may be possibly folded into its parent company Warner Bros (folded meaning everything belonging to New Line will become WB property and the New Line name will be dropped). Now the estate of Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing New Line because they’re claiming they haven’t received ANY profit-participation money from the trilogy, which grossed almost $3 billion worldwide.

Second: Jew-hating Mel Gibson is being sued by his own writer, Benedict Fitzgerald, who wrote the screenplay for The Passion of the Christ. Fizgerald is claiming that Gibson had made him take a lower wage and less profit points on The Passion because it was going to be a low-budget picture. This lawsuit may go by the wayside, as I think it’ll turn out to simply be a matter of the writer wanting more money because the movie turned out to be a bigger hit than anyone expected.

Now for the one that may cause some serious problems for a movie that’s not even finished yet: 20th Century Fox is suing Warner Bros. over the rights to the upcoming comic adaptation Watchmen (directed by 300’s Zack Snyder). Fox is claiming that they have the exclusive distribution rights for Watchmen, which is currently being produced (and slated for distribution) by WB. Fox claims they had ALL movie rights to Watchmen in the early 90s but (for some reason) gave all but the distribution rights up.

What doesn’t make sense in this lawsuit (for me at least) is that the Watchmen comic book is a DC Comics property… and DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros. Since the beginning of time, only WB has produced (and distributed) movies based on DC books, so what doesn’t make sense to me is why Fox would have the rights to Watchmen.

Well, sadly, Universal found a director to take over The Wolf Man. Why sadly? Because he’s only got 2 weeks to prepare to shoot the movie, and because his Jurassic Park was the least impressive of the three. I guess we’ll have to wait until next year to see how this goes…

I was actually floored when I saw the Friday box office estimates. Coming completely out of nowhere, the concert movie Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds took in an estimated $8.6million on Friday, which puts the whole weekend at around $20million (and that’s accounting for Super Bowl fallout).

The surprise (for me at least) is that it beat out Jessica Alba-starrer The Eye, which took in a pathetic (by ANY standards) $4.9mil on Friday (for a weekend estimate of $11mil). For a movie, especially a concert movie, that has had little to no mainstream media advertising (I didn’t know about this movie until 5 days ago… I haven’t seen any commercials, posters, billboards, ANYTHING) to beat out a Jessica Alba movie, regardless of how good it is, by almost twice as much earnings is astounding.

Check this out, I’m going to take this level of astonishment one level higher… you ready? Hannah Montana made twice as much on Friday even though it only released in ONE-FOURTH as many theatres as The Eye! That’s right, it made 6 times as much money per theatre! If that ain’t a bitch slap to Jessica Alba’s face, I don’t know what is.

A peak over at RottenTomatoes.com shows that… *gasp!* … Hannah Montana might even be a better movie than The Eye (87% vs. 26% freshness rating, respectively)!

Maybe this will be the wake up call that Jessica Alba sorely needs. She’s been harping on and on about being taken serious, about wanting to be a better actress, and yet she keeps taking shit roles. I honestly can’t say if she’s a good actress or not because she’s yet to come through. I saw glimpses of talent in some of her unknown movies, but those were done years ago. Like Ari Gold told her in Entourage, “Let’s get you out of those leotards.”

If you don’t know who Mark Romanek is, you’re not alone. He’s the guy who wrote and directed One Hour Photo, one of Robin Williams’ most serious and creepiest movies to date. He was the talk of the town for creating such a dark and captivating story, and for such a low budget ($12 mil).

Today word exploded that Romanek, who was handed Universal’s remake of The Wolfman on a golden plate with a side order of $100 million, QUIT, just all of a sudden, with less than 3 weeks before filming was supposed to begin. All the regular  sources are quoting Variety, which claims he left over “creative differences”, but good ol’ Nikki Finke seems to know the dirt: Mark Romanek, who until now has only been a player in commercials and music videos, quit The Wolfman because he couldn’t find a way to make the movie for less than $100 million.

One. Hundred. Million. Dollars. American. You hear that? That’s the death rattle from Mark Romanek’s career’s throat.

Okay, now look at this photo of Benicio Del Toro (who is starring and producing) in a Wolfman test shot. He looks pretty fucking wicked, right? THAT’S ALL HIM! No make-up, not even hair-extensions, they just ruffled his hair and he made this exaggerated face and boom, he’s halfway to becoming the Wolfman.

My point is, he won’t be needing that much special make-up most of the time. Which is a major cost savings, right?

If they’re going to base it on the original Universal movie instead of creating an all-new story, I don’t see much of a need for overly-complex CG (for fuck’s sake, I better not see any CG wolves!), so there’s another major savings in cost, right?

PLUS, the movie was going to be shot in the UK, which has mad tax rebates for movies… it actually would’ve cost Universal $85 million instead of $100 million.

Tent-pole movie, $100 million budget, Oscar-winning Benicio Del Toro, Andrew Kevin Walker (Se7en) writing the script, and Mark Romanek, who has only made one feature-length (but good) movie, quits. Fuck me!
Now Universal is scrambling to find a new director to keep their February 18th shoot start in place. Highly unlikely. If they DO manage to make this happen, I guarantee the final outcome won’t be good. It’s really in everyone’s best interest to take their time to find the right director. Give me a call, Universal, I made a short movie last year that I’m sure qualifies me for the job

I was surprised this morning to discover that the Writer’s Guild struck a deal with United Artists (the studio headed by Tom Cruise and his producing partner Paula Wagner) that will allow the studio to develop screenplays during the writer’s strike.

This is all part of the WGA’s new “divide and conquer” strategy (as explained by Nikki Finke), which resulted in David Letterman and Craig Ferguson getting to use writers on their talk shows, while others like Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel have to improvise everything. The WGA is hoping that by making deals with individual companies, the AMPTP will be forced to concede to the WGA’s demands.

Although the UA deal is only the 2nd of its kind (and UA is technically a very tiny studio… the actual impact is questionable), it’s clear that the WGA’s negotiations with individual companies are working. What makes it a blow for AMPTP’s cause is that United Artists agreed to the exact demands that the WGA put on the table for AMPTP, which amounts to a “if UA can do it, AMPTP can” scenario. Plus, it’s a win-win for United Artists, because if the WGA and AMPTP resolve their issues and end up with lesser demands, the UA can (and will) cancel their interim agreement and take part in the lesser deal.

However, the question now is, what was the motivation behind the deals? Is it an honest desire to agree with the WGA’s demands, or is it a desperate need to resume work? While Letterman’s Worldwide Pants is a pretty successful company, I don’t believe it’s big; aside from producing Letterman and Ferguson’s shows, it makes one, maybe two, other television shows each year (it used to produce Everybody Loves Raymond).

United Artist may in fact be smaller than Worldwide Pants. Since its rebirth in 2006, its only output so far was the financial and critical bomb Lions for Lambs, and its next release, the Bryan Singer-helmed Valkyrie, has been getting some negative press and has in fact just been pushed from a summer release to winter, which is never a good sign. According to IMDB, it only has 2 other projects lined up, neither of which are on anyone’s radar.

Is the WGA trying to hit the smaller companies first? Did UA go to WGA first, or vice-versa? These and so many other questions need to be answered before we can understand whether WGA’s divide-and-conquer strategy is actually working, before it’s too late.