It's been a wild week in the wacky world of labor agreement negotiations in Hollywood.

As the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers (AMPTP, negotiating on behalf of the major motion picture studios) get closer to starting their own negotiation track, the chill between AMPTP and the striking Writers Guild of America (WGA) continues, with neither side proposing anything to break the current impasse.

But individual movie production companies are following the path blazed by TV talk-show production companies in negotiating independent agreements with WGA. Tom Cruise's production company and United Artists both reached interim working agreements with WGA earlier in the week, and the Weinstein Co. joined the fray yesterday by signing one of its own with WGA to get back to work on a full schedule of projects. Among the projects the Weinstein Co. has current designs on is a film version of the Broadway musical Nine, itself based on Federico Fellini's film 8 1/2, and a remake of Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai.

This stratagem by WGA could increase pressure on the studios to reach a deal that will give writers more of a cut from new media revenues, the chief sticking point in current negotiations.
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