Sometimes it just takes two.
The striking Writers Guild of America announced Monday that it has reached an interim deal with United Artists, the production shingle revived by Tom Cruise and partner Paula Wagner in 2006 after the duo were booted from the Paramount lot.
“United Artists has lived up to its name. UA and the Writers Guild came together and negotiated seriously. The end result is that we have a deal that will put people back to work,” WGA West president Patric Verrone said in a statement.
According to the guild, the agreement encompasses residuals for content distributed online and through other new-media channels, the question of which has posed the biggest obstacle to a mutually satisfying contract between scribes and the studios, which are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
The UA-WGA deal, the first arrangement with big-screen producers since the writers' strike began Nov. 5, both echoes the one struck last month with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants Inc., which owns The Late Show, that allowed the host to return to work with his writing staff intact, and paves the way for similar deals with other independent companies.
Contracts with the Weinstein Company and Lionsgate, among others, are also reportedly in the works.
"United Artists can make movies now. We're hoping it's a sign of things to come," Verrone told E! Online Monday. "This puts pressure on all the film studios to get back to the table. It shows that our proposals are reasonable and it shows that we can make a deal when people are willing to bargain for it."
“This agreement is important, unique, and makes good business sense for United Artists," Wagner said in a statement. "In keeping with the philosophy of its original founders, artists who sought to create a studio in which artists and their creative visions could flourish, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with the WGA.”
However, the temporary détente does not extend to United Artists' parent company, MGM, which supposedly discouraged UA from negotiating with the WGA independently.
MGM "understands the desire of United Artists to resume its business activities, but respectfully disagrees with its decision to sign an interim agreement with the WGA," the studio said Monday.
"MGM remains committed to working with AMPTP member companies to reach a fair and reasonable agreement with the WGA that positions everyone in our industry for success in a rapidly changing marketplace."
The deal theoretically could have been a boon for MGM, because then the studio would have then had UA's films to distribute.
Wagner and Cruise own 35 percent of the company. Their next project, Oliver Stone's Pinkville, was postponed indefinitely last month after it was determined that the script was still in need of a rewrite.
Talks between the WGA and AMPTP shut down for the second time Dec. 7, and the warring parties have been avoiding the proverbial table ever since.
The WGA extended an invitation last month to all the major networks and studios to enter individual negotiations.
"We are talking with a number of other likeminded production entities, but ultimately we need to bargain with the conglomerates," Verrone said. "That's the way to put this town back to work."
But as one hatchet was buried Monday, another slammed the industry in the back.
NBC announced earlier today that this year's Golden Globe Awards are going to be pretty much unrecognizable, as far as glamorous, red-carpet affairs go. The Jan. 13 event has been scaled back and instead will consist of a series of Dateline interviews with nominees, a one-hour retrospective on past Globe ceremonies, a press conference announcing the 2008 winners, and Access Hollywood coverage of the after-parties.
The Screen Actors Guild said last week that none of this year's 72 acting nominees was willing to cross the writers' picket line.