No End in Sight: Trade Roughage 12/03/07

By Karina Longworth on December 3, 2007 at 7:53 am

The strike look set to carry on indefinitely. Plus: a big weekend at the indie box office.

Sunday night strike stories: According to Carl DiOrio at The Hollywood Reporter, “The WGA will respond to studio reps’ latest contract proposal on new-media pay by advancing its own new proposals.” Though DiOrio admits that “the simple fact is that nobody knows where this roller-coaster ride of collective bargaining will end,” his is still the glass half-full take compared to Variety’s take. Dave McNary says that while the WGA has been surprisingly lenient in the past few days about allowing writers to work on benefits and awards shows, “Optimism for a quick resolution as negotiations resume Tuesday has faded to nearly nonexistent.”
With Enchanted expectedly taking the number one spot at the overall box office for the second week in a row, the real story this weekend is in the specialty market. The Savages opened to the best per-screen average of the week, with $38,280 in each of its five locations; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly opened to $85,300 across three screens, making it Julian Schnabel’s most impressive opening to date; and I’m Not There dropped a respectable 33% whilst expanding to 138 screens. To their credit, this time Variety managed to report it without being totally condescending.
Deals: Ridley Scott will direct a Gucci family biopic for Fox 2000; Variety confirms fanboy whispers that Christian Bale is “closing in on the role of John Connor in Warner Bros.’ reboot of the Terminator franchise.”