Global warming may have gotten Hollywood revved up last year, but it's the chilly shadow cast by the writers' strike that has stars rethinking whether to venture outside in 2008.  

Vanity Fair announced Tuesday that it has canceled its annual Academy Awards party, where industry insiders gather to dine and watch the kudosfest on TV before being joined by the evening's ecstatic winners, good-natured losers, pop culture icons, industry titans and the best and brightest of the red carpet crowd, whether they made a much-revered movie that year or not.

"After much consideration, and in support of the writers and everyone else affected by this strike, we have decided that this is not the appropriate year to hold our annual Oscar party," the New York-based magazine said in a statement. 

"We want to congratulate all of this year’s nominees and we look forward to hosting our 15th Oscar party next year."

A VF spokeswoman wouldn't say how much money the mag is losing by scrapping the party so close to showtime, but she said that much of the materials that have been ordered can be used next year.  

"Inasmuch as Vanity Fair is a collection of writers, photographers and artists, we do feel ourselves in aligned solidarity with the writers, directors and actors in the film business," editor-in-chief Graydon Carter said in a statement.

The black-tie crowd at last year's VF bash at Morton's steakhouse in West Hollywood included Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Sean Penn, Martin Scorsese and the rest of The Departed crew, Oprah Winfrey, Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Ellen DeGeneres, Al Gore, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, Jerry Seinfeld, Jessica Biel, überproducer Brian Grazer, Kirsten Dunst, Clive Owen, Penélope Cruz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Peter O'Toole…etc.

With Morton's closing last year, the party was headed for the first time to the new industry hot spot Craft in Century City, which just opened over the summer.  

While the word around town is that the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and TV Producers, which represents the major studios, are putting the finishing touches on a mutually satisfactory deal, nothing is certain until a formal contract is drawn up.

The arrangement tentatively in place reportedly resembles the new three-year contract the alliance inked with the Directors Guild of America several weeks ago, but with a marked increase in residuals from content streamed online. 

If the WGA's West Coast board approves the terms introduced Friday, the strike would grind to a halt immediately and writers could be back to work in days, people familiar with the closed-door goings-on have said.

WGA members are set to meet in Los Angeles and New York on Saturday to be briefed on the current proposal.  

The tentative hopefulness that the strike could be resolved in a matter of days certainly perked up the mood at the Oscar nominees' luncheon held Monday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, although memories of the embarrassment that was the 65th annual Golden Globes news conference surely still haunted those in attendance.

There is still a plan for a traditional, star-studded, ultraglam 80th Annual Academy Awards ceremony to take place Feb. 24, hosted as planned by Jon Stewart at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, although show producers and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have admitted that an alternate telecast largely utilizing film clips and other event history is also in the works. 

"There's a tentative agreement out there that I think has a good shot at getting signed," Best Actor nominee George Clooney, joking that he had just returned from "two weeks in four conflict zones," said Monday.

The Michael Clayton star was among the 11 acting nominees who showed up for the daytime affair, with Johnny Depp, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Day-Lewis, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and Atonement newcomer Saoirse Ronan opting to sit this one out.  

"I belong to a union and I think they're fighting for the right reasons and you want to support that," No Country for Old Men scene-stealer Javier Bardem said. "Hopefully they will get to an agreement soon because it's affecting a lot of people now." 

"I've said all along, and I mean it, this is lovely and extraordinary and a dream, but at the end of the day, people's livelihoods are more important," added Amy Ryan, a Best Supporting Actress nominee for Gone Baby Gone.

All 13 nominated screenwriters and six directors—Ethan and Joel Coen traveling in tandem, of course—were in attendance. 

But while last weekend's Screen Actors Guild Awards and Monday's pre-Oscar meet-'n'-greet have certainly proved there's joy and camaraderie left to be tapped this awards season, nothing will technically change until that contract has been signed.

 "We are still in talks and do not yet have a contract," WGA West and East presidents Patric Verrone and Michael Winship wrote in a joint letter to union members. "Until we have reached an agreement with the AMPTP [Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers], it is essential that we continue to show our resolve, solidarity and strength."