Hard Work Has Cruise's Studio Poised to Strike

Movie studio first to break ranks

(NEWSER) - United Artists, the independent production unit of MGM controlled by actor Tom Cruise, is expected to soon finalize a deal with striking Hollywood writers modeled on the one made by producers for talk-show host David Letterman, the Los Angeles Times reports. United Artists will likely grant some key demands of the Writers Guild of America. The union hopes getting independent producers on board will help push the big studios back to the bargaining table. More»

Sundance speech gets testy

(NEWSER) - Spike Lee screened his latest film—Red Hook Summer, a quasi-sequel to Do the Right Thing—at the Sundance Film Festival last night, but what really got people talking was the profanity-laden tirade he delivered in the Q&A afterward. The fireworks started when surprise attendee Chris Rock stood up and asked how the movie would have been different if Lee had gone through a studio. "What else would have happened? Would you have blown up some shit?" he asked, according to the Wrap . More»

Really? 'Hot Tub Time Machine' is the best we can do?

(NEWSER) - “2010 very possibly is the worst year in the history of motion pictures,” declares Joe Queenan in a hilarious Wall Street Journal piece bemoaning the downfall of American cinema. You know things are bad in Hollywood when:

• “Shia LaBeouf—who looks a bit like the young George W. Bush” is being passed off “as the second coming of Tom Cruise.”
• The top contenders for Next Big Action Star are Jake Gyllenhaal and Adrien Brody. “None of these are logical heirs to the throne abandoned by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone. They may not even be legitimate heirs to the throne vacated by Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme.”

See, they really were just like us...once

(NEWSER) - Even Tom Cruise had a newspaper route—in his pre-Hollywood days, of course. The Daily Beast uncovers the summer jobs of 15 celebrities:

• Amy Adams: The Enchanted star was, briefly, a Hooters girl after high school, but she says she “wasn’t cut out to be a Hooters waitress.”
• Brad Pitt: His first job in Hollywood involved wearing a chicken suit at El Pollo Loco.

New studio heads place bets on 'branded entertainment'

(NEWSER) - In previous downturns, the corporate owners of America's movie studios would cut Hollywood some slack. Not anymore: these days, the corporate suites of LA look like the aftermath of a slasher flick, with old hands kicked out at Disney, Universal, MGM, and Paramount. With DVD sales down 25% and easy financing a thing of the past, "there's been more change in the last 18 months than in the preceding 18 years," one exec tells the Los Angeles Times. More»