• J.J. Abrams says he will “honor his contractual obligation to work as a director” on his upcoming Star Trek reinvention, but will also serve some time in the picket lines outside Paramount, where writers are apparently chanting things like “Who’s got more money than they can count? Paramount!” (There’s no indication as to who raised their pencil to write that one.) Also seen on picket lines yesterday: James L. Brooks, Tina Fey, and the writers of Lost.
• Meanwhile, Hollywood’s two most beloved presidential candidates both issued statements yesterday in support of the writers. Barack Obama characterized the fight as “a test of whether media corporations are going to give writers a fair share of the wealth their work creates or continue concentrating profits in the hands of their executives.” Hillary Clinton was, predictably, a little less acerbic in her criticism of those executives. “I support the Writers Guild’s pursuit of a fair contract that pay them for their work in all mediums,” Clinton said. “I hope the producers and writers will return to the bargaining table.”
• American Film Market is the last event where indie producers can close projects that will be wrapped before the SAG and Directors Guild reach their own pre-strike deadline in March, and so far it looks like slow going. Said Mark Urman of ThinkFilm: “Actors normally on a one on/one off indie/studio film schedule now are looking for big paydays in big, stupid Hollywood movies.”

• It’s official: The Writers Guild will strike, as soon as Monday morning. It still seems like the impact will be focused on TV, at least for the time being. Les Moonves insists that CBS doesn’t need writers to make it through the season (although he didn’t comment on how the strike will effect late night shows like David Letterman’s). SAG is pledging solidarity, but has advised its members that if they’re under contract, they must go to work. The Teamsters say they won’t cross picket lines, to which ABC responded: “If you make a decision not to cross a picket line by another union such as the WGA, know that you are refusing to perform your duties on a day that you have a call and that the Studio has the right to replace you.” More on this clusterfuck as it unfolds.
• Natalie Portman has signed a two-picture deal for her production company with Jeff Skoll’s Participant Productions. She’s separately setting up her feature directorial debut, an adaptation of Amos Oz’s memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness. The script will be written by Naomi Foner, who is the mother of Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal.
• David Fincher will direct an adaptation of the graphic novel The Killer for Paramount.
• Variety confirms a rumor that was in the NY Post a couple of days ago: THINKFilm has shelved a planned theatrical microrelease for Bordertown, and will only distribute the film on DVD. It’s the reteaming of Jennifer Lopez with her Selena director, Gregory Nava, and it was allegedly booed at the Berlin Film Festival.

Anne Thompson of the Hoolywood Reporter’s Risky Business column wrote a great piece about how an Indy production costing less than $1 million was able to position itself for a prominent Oscar nomination. It was no accident that Half Nelson star Ryan Gosling is a Best Actor nominee, Thompson says in her column “How ThinkFilm goosed Gosling’s Oscar drive.”

ThinkFilm’s distribution and marketing president Mark Urman “made the decision to pursue a Best Actor Oscar nomination” when ThinkFilm acquired Half Nelson more than a year ago at Sundance 2006. The strategies were put into play. Among them were the film’s August opening (squeezing in ahead of the pack), sending out thousands of DVDs to the Academy and SAG nominating committee, and taking out ads in the LA Times that focused on Gosling as a brilliant new talent. Urman and Gosling also had luck on their side, because the best actor competition was lighter than usual. And, as Thompson quotes Urman in her column, from time to time the Academy likes to take part in the “discovery” of new talent:

Urman, a veteran Oscar marketer who’d played a role in winning campaigns for Lionsgate’s “Gods and Monsters” and “Affliction,” knew that acting nominations for breakthrough newcomer performances are doable. “We all generalize that the Academy is one giant brain,” he says. “But there are trends. There is a steady affection for the discovery, like Julie Christie in ‘Darling.’ The Academy has always enjoyed making an investment in a career.”

Apparently so. Urman’s strategies worked. I’m happy for Gosling and Half Nelson, that an Indy film and emerging actor can play with the big boys. But even while it gives me more faith in the Academy, it simultaneously gives me less. Gosling made it to the short list not as much for his stunning acting talent as for ThinkFilm’s marketing talent and the money they were willing to throw into promotions. It’s still all a big game, which is made even more apparent when you see all the two-columned prediction lists out there–one column for who various critics think will win the top honors, and another column for who they think deserves to win.