Maybe the Da Vinci code offers some clue as to how the writers and studios can break through the current impasse.

While the major networks' cache of first-run episodes is rapidly dwindling and therefore has caused the most public nail-biting to date, the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike claimed its first major big-screen casualty last week, and another this weekend.

First off, production on Angels & Demons, the feature adaptation of the first book in Dan Brown's bestselling conspiracy series featuring Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, has been postponed.

Columbia Pictures announced Friday that the release date for the prequel-turned-sequel starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard has been tentatively pushed back from around the winter holidays in 2008 to May 15, 2009.

Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who also penned The Da Vinci Code, said last month that he was burning the midnight oil to finish the Angels & Demons script before the WGA's contract expired Oct. 31. And he apparently did, although first drafts are sometimes unrecognizable from the finished products that audiences' eventually see, much less ready for shooting right out of the gate.

Needless to say, Goldsman didn't pick up any hardware for The Da Vinci Code, which was widely panned (and might rank up there with The Bonfire of the Vanities as one of Hanks' worst), although it managed to bank a sequel-worthy $218 million at the U.S. box office and a heart-pounding $758 million worldwide.

Goldsman was fresh off a win in 2002 for A Beautiful Mind, however, which also won Best Picture and Director honors for Howard. (Jennifer Connolly snagged a Best Supporting Actress win, as well.)

"While the filmmakers and the studio feel the screenplay is very strong, we do not believe it is the fully realized production draft required of this ambitious project," Columbia said. "At this time, there is no new start date, but we are setting a release date of May 15, 2009."

"We do not expect any other film on our 2008 slate to be affected," the Sony-owned studio added.

That slate includes Daniel Craig's 007 follow-up, Bond 22 (Nov. 7); the superhero drama Hancock, starring Will Smith (July 2); the comedy Step Brothers, another buddy-rivalry comedy with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly (July 25); and the Israeli secret agent-turned-hairdresser Adam Sandler tearjerker—just kidding—comedy, You Don't Mess with Zohan (June 6).

Angels & Demons will eventually feature Hanks being called upon to investigate a murderous secret society called the Illuminati before it can carry out an attack on the Vatican during a papal meeting.

Similarly affected will be Oliver Stone's next politically charged dramatic thriller, Pinkville, starring Bruce Willis and Woody Harrelson, about the 1968 My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. United Artists—Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's recently rejuvenated production house—said Saturday that neither Stone nor scribe Mikko Alanne (both WGA members) are available to provide the necessary rewrites before production gets off the ground.

Therefore, production, which was scheduled to begin next month in Thailand, has been postponed indefinitely, for now.

But it's possible that Goldsman and Alanne will be able to get back to work sooner than anyone previously thought.

Also Friday, leaders from the WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture & TV Producers announced that they are planning to resume contract negotiations on Nov. 26, despite the AMPTP's previous demand that all picketing needed to cease before the alliance would return to the table.

As of Sunday afternoon, production assistants were still set to join WGA members outside of 20th Century Fox Studios on Monday, and more than 100 people from the SAG/AFTRA/EQUITY Performers with Disabilities Committee are due to show up at Warner Bros. A big march down Hollywood Boulevard is scheduled for Tuesday, after which nothing is planned because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

The writers strike officially kicked off Nov. 5 after talks stalled regarding the union's demand to receive a cut of the ad revenue that studios and networks earn from film and TV content distributed online and through various other new media channels, such as cell phones.