golden globes (41 posts)

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Martin Scorsese is a GreatFella. Just ask the folks behind the Golden Globes, who've tapped the legendary Oscar-winning filmmaker as the latest recipient of their highest honor.

Scorsese, 67, will pick up the the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 67th Annual Golden Globes set to take place Jan. 17 and hosted by Ricky Gervais.

They're talkin' to you, Marty.

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ABC/TIM OGIER

The Golden Globes just got a whole lot funnier.

One of our favorite awards shows—it has movies and TV!—just tapped one of our favorite stars—he's done movies and TV!—to host.

No, it's not Neil Patrick Harris. The Office originator, Ricky Gervais, will be donning a penguin suit, looking handsome and leading the charge of statuettes handed out at the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 17.

He'll be taking the reins from, well, no one.

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The Oscars are moving to March. The Golden Globes are moving to, well, live.

The 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards will be broadcast by NBC at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Jan. 17, 2010, the Hollywood Foreign Press announced today.

The bottom line for West Coast viewers: Say goodbye to tape-delayed cuss words from your favorite champagne-quaffing winner. (Although, sorry, if the network can help it, the cuss words will still be bleeped.)

The move was billed as a first for the Globes, although the star-deficient, Globes press conference of 2008 also was carried live. The latter event, though, wasn't exactly what you'd call a ceremony. Or maybe even an event.

The move also positions the Globes on the third weekend in January for the first time since 2006. (Of late, it had been held on the second weekend.) The new schedule mimics that of the Oscars, which is moving to the first weekend in March for the first time since 2006.

Niko Tavernise/Fox Searchlight Pictures

UPDATE: WWE honcho Vince McMahon tells E! News that Rourke will still be in Houston, even if he's not in a leotard: "I am pleased that Mickey Rourke will be in attendance at WrestleMania to support the WWE Superstars who support him and the film in which he stars, The Wrestler."
_________________________________________________________________

Mickey Rourke's appearance on WrestleMania 25 was a total knockout before it even began.

At the SAG Awards on Sunday, the Academy Award nominee (for his role as Randy "the Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler) told E! News he was planning to "do" the event. He even threatened WWE star Chris Jericho, saying, "You better get in shape because I'm coming after your ass."

But sadly, the April 5 grapple in Houston is not to be.

"Mickey was very honored to be asked, as he has the greatest respect for WWE. However, he will not be participating in WrestleMania," the actor's rep, Paula Woods, says in a statement. "He is focusing entirely on his acting career."

Besides, the Golden Globe winner has a more prestigious match to concentrate on: his upcoming Oscar face-off with Sean Penn.

—Additional reporting by Whitney English

(Originally published Jan. 29, 2009 at 7:36 a.m. PT)

Walt Disney Pictures

Slumdog Millionaire was pretty darn good…but WALL-E was a cut above, according to RottenTomatoes.com.

The critically adored Disney-Pixar flick about a junk-collecting robot and his superhuman feelings has been awarded the Golden Tomato by the review-compiling site, which gives each film a score based on its "fresh" and "rotten" feedback.

In wide release, nothing was as crowd-pleasing as WALL-E, which scored 96 percent on the Tomatometer, meaning 96 percent of its reviews were favorable.

Slumdog Millionaire, which picked up major Oscar steam Sunday by winning the Golden Globe for Best Picture, Drama has a 94 percent T-Meter rating.

If you're wondering what people were smiling at in the art houses in 2008, however, that would be Man on Wire.

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It would be inaccurate to say nobody watched the Golden Globes. But it wouldn't be far off.

NBC's prime-time coverage of Sunday's Globes announcements, billed by the network as "Hollywood's biggest night for TV and film," scored about as many viewers as your average Cops: 5.8 million, per Nielsen Media Research estimates.

Overall, it actually was a big night for TV, with Fox killing with the premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and CBS riding high with the first part of its new western miniseries, Comanche Moon.

As for the sad, little Globes...

It was reported Monday that NBC's Globes ratings were way off from last year's (about 70 percent, if you judge Sunday's 5.8 million against 2007's 20 million). But comparing last year's ratings to this year's ratings is like comparing apples to atomic particles.

Last year's Globes was a show, with stars, gowns and acceptance speeches, all exclusively aired on NBC. This year's Globes, caught in the middle of a Hollywood labor war that kept every single nominee and winner home, was a 30-minute, dress-down news conference hosted by entertainment-news anchors and carried live by several networks, including CNN, E! and TV Guide Channel.

It was not known how many people, combined, watched the news conference on broadcast and cable. The only stat to go by on Monday was the audience, such as it was, that NBC captured for its Access Hollywood-branded Globes special, which aired 9-10 p.m. and saw anchors Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell read off the winners after their colleagues had read off the winners at the news conference.

The special, which was not the official Globes telecast (there was no official Globes telecast), did "best" among viewers over 50, who apparently like to have their news disseminated more slowly, and with a bit of a delay.

The special did deliver NBC its biggest numbers of the night, if only because there was even less interest in its two-hour Dateline NBC, which featured interviews with Globe nominees, and averaged 4.4 million viewers.

It could be said that the Globes' demise gave rise to The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but it would be better said that the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys did.

Airing at 8 p.m., right after the conclusion of super-high-rated NFL playoff action in many markets, The Sarah Connor Chronicles averaged 18.3 million viewers. According to Fox, it was its most watched premiere of a scripted show since Malcolm in the Middle launched in 2000.

Two provisos before the hit label is sewn on: One, the show, picking up where Terminator 2: Judgment Day left off, lost 2.5 million viewers from its first half hour to its second half hour; and two, Fox compared its performance to Dark Angel and Oliver Beene, a pair of shows that started big, and ended small after only two seasons each.

CBS, meanwhile, spun the 15.8 million viewers that Comanche Moon averaged from 9 to 11 p.m. as the "largest audience for any movie on any network in more than two years." Which it was, if you don't count High School Musical 2 as a movie, and the Disney Channel as a network. (Later, in its release, CBS clarified that it was talking about broadcast networks.)

In any case, Comanche Moon outdrew a new Brothers & Sisters on ABC (10.9 million), an old American Gladiators on NBC (4.3 million) and, of course, the Globes special on NBC.

If the Golden Globes are handed out, but no one is there to collect them, did it ever really happen?  

We're still trying to figure that out. What we do know is that on Sunday night, in lieu of a glitzy, boozy affair, we got a bizarrely sedate half-hour 65th Annual Golden Globes news conference.

No stars were on hand to collect their prizes in an evening where the wealth was spread around.

Atonement was named Best Motion Picture, Drama, one of two wins for the film, set in World War II-era London and France, while Sweeney Todd also scored two trophies—Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and Johnny Depp's killer performance. (Get the full list of winners.)

Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men notched two wins, as well, including Best Screenplay honors for the fraternal filmmakers and a Best Supporting Actor trophy for Javier Bardem, who was also a loquacious winner at the Critics' Choice Awards last week.

"It is a great honor to have been recognized with this award in a time when there are so many outstanding performances in this category," Bardem said, graciously offering up an acceptance speech in the form of a statement Sunday night.

"I would like to thank the Coens for their trust and for allowing me to be part of their creative process in this incredible project. I want to share this award with Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones and Kelly McDonald and thank Scott Rudin, Miramax and Paramount Vantage." 

Brooklyn-born artist Julian Schnabel beat out, among others, the Coen brothers and Tim Burton to capture the Best Director prize for the French-language The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the winner for Best Foreign-Language Film. 

Brits Daniel Day-Lewis and Julie Christie further cemented their status as Oscar frontrunners, winning for Best Actor and Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama, for their respective roles as a power-mad oilman in There Will Be Blood and an Alzheimer's patient in Away from Her. This was Christie's first Globe nomination since 1976, when she was up for acting in Shampoo.

But it's Cate Blanchett's win for Best Supporting Actress for one of the seven takes on Bob Dylan in I'm Not There that really summed up the theme of the evening.

Considering no one was there and all. 

This should have been a night for raucous celebration, made even more so by the Globes' usual wine-with-dinner approach at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, but there was very little to applaud, thanks to, as The Insider's Lara Spencer put it, the elephant in the room. 

The Hollywood writers' strike is now entering its 11th week, and the Writers Guild of America adamantly refused to throw the Globes a bone and allow union scribes to pen material for the telecast. The Screen Actors Guild, in turn, threw its support behind the writers, after which the HFPA scrapped the ceremony once it was known that none of the 72 acting nominees would be willing to cross a WGA picket line.  

So, instead of the likes of Julia Roberts, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Sally Field, Steve Carell, Amy Adams and America Ferrera, awards were passed out by members of the entertainment journalism community, including Spencer, E! News' Giuliana Rancic, Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart and Inside Edition's Jim Moret, all doing their best to liven up the decidedly subdued affair.  

"I just want you all to know, all of us presenting the awards tonight are not major movie stars, in case you didn't notice," Spencer said, trying to lighten the moment as she announced a handful of the evening's winners, including Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, whose "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild was named Best Original Song, and Glenn Close, who was rightly named Best Actress in a Drama Series for her scene-chewing turn as litigator Patty Hewes in FX's Damages.  

Meanwhile, as befitting a celebration that was really no laughing matter, music beat out comedy by a mile in the theoretically more lighthearted film categories. 

Burton may have been snubbed, but Sweeney Todd beat out indie darling Juno and the hit song-and-dancer Hairspray for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, honors, and Depp's performance as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street won him his first Golden Globe in eight tries.

"I would like to thank my beloved friends at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for bestowing such an honor on me. It is a humbling experience, especially in the company of such talent," Depp said in a statement. "For many years the HFPA has supported my work and for that I have always been truly grateful.

"While this is indeed a happy day for me, I am overjoyed at the recognition the film as a whole is receiving."

Marion Cotillard's embodiment of French torch singer Edith Piaf in the often downbeat La Vie en Rose earned her the trophy for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.  

Despite the lack of fanfare, at least the Globes could still be counted on to recognize some of the edgier work being done on TV these days, the selection of a period epic for Best Film notwithstanding.  

Basic cable network AMC joined the ranks of FX and TNT as Mad Men, about the cutthroat world of the Madison Avenue advertising business circa 1960, was named Best Series, Drama, and star Jon Hamm was named Best Actor for his work as the ever-slick Don Draper. 

The recently departed Extras won for Best Comedy Series, meaning Ricky Gervais has now produced and starred in two sitcoms that both won this top honor and signed off after two beloved seasons—The Office, of course, being the other one.    

The joke was also on Tina Fey, who has said repeatedly that she considers herself a writer rather than an actress yet still earned the title Best Actress in a Comedy Series for 30 Rock, the NBC sitcom's sole win.  

Four-time nominee Jeremy Piven finally picked up (not literally, of course) his first win for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or TV Movie for his still great work as über-agent Ari Gold in Entourage, helping to make HBO the most honored network of the night with six wins.

The HBO movie Longford was actually the biggest winner of the night with three awards, including Best Miniseries or TV Movie.

The telepic's kudos also included Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or TV Movie for new mom Samantha Morton and Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie for Jim Broadbent, who played the titular English politician.  

Yet another first-time winner was Queen Latifah, named Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie for her role as an HIV-positive activist in HBO's Life Support.

"I am so thrilled," she said in a thank-you statement. "I wish I could be with you tonight to celebrate." (So do we, Queen Latifah, so do we.)    

"Life Support is such an important film which addresses such important issues, and I'm so proud to be recognized for my work in it. I only hope the film helps in our fight against AIDS and HIV." 

Though HBO continued to dominate the premium cable scene, Californication star David Duchovny took one for the Showtime team, winning Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his turn as an oversexed writer who's having trouble putting pen to paper—and not because there's a strike.  

While the WGA opted not to picket the Globes after the HFPA quashed NBC's planned exclusive coverage and opened it up to all news outlets, a small group of nonwriting entertainment-industry workers were gathered outside the venue earlier in the day, expressing their increasing disgruntlement with the strike. 

"Rest assured that next year the Golden Globes will be back bigger and better than ever," HFPA president Jorge Camara promised in wrapping up the admittedly lackluster news conference.    

Mary Hart had the write, er, right idea. 

"Yes, I yearn for the days of Jack Nicholson mooning the Golden Globes, Christine Lahti getting locked in the bathroom. But we have that for next year," the ET anchor said. 

• Get the complete list of winners of the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards.

It turns out the 65th Annual Golden Globes is going to be treated just like any other newsworthy event of the gross-anomaly variety.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Friday that it has assumed complete control over its Golden Globes "announcement" from NBC, and that all electronic media will be free to cover Sunday's news conference announcing the winners.

"Under the new arrangement, there will be no restrictions placed on media outlets covering the press conference," the HFPA said in statement.

Because of the more open proceedings, the Writers Guild of America has promised to keep the opposition at bay.

"In light of this change to the program, the WGA gave the HFPA our assurances that there would be no picket of their press conference on Sunday," the guild, which counts NBC as a struck company, said in a statement Friday.

And because the writers are backing off, sources tell E! News that some celebrities may be on hand, although there won't be a traditional red carpet. Actors had previously agreed to honor the writers' picket line.

A spokeswoman for the Screen Actors Guild said Friday, however, that, as far as the union knows, no member is scheduled to show up. But they can if they want.

"It is our understanding that other than several announcers, there will be no presenters or attendees at the press conference," rep Pamela Greenwalt said. "Our members can attend any press conference they choose."

Access Hollywood anchors Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell were also rumored to be doling out the awards, but the HFPA has announced that a number of entertainment anchors, including E! News' Giuliana Rancic, Entertainment Tonight's Mary Hart, Jim Moret of Inside Edition and The Insider's Lara Spencer, will join HFPA president Jorge Camara in doing the honors.

"The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is grateful for the tremendous support provided the Golden Globe Awards from national entertainment news programs," Camara said in a statement.

The stripped-down Globes is scheduled to air live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the longtime home of what is normally a glamorous, star-studded gala, at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

NBC, which had gone from exclusive home of the Golden Globes ceremony to exclusive home of the Golden Globes press conference, taking a multimillion-dollar hit in terms of ad revenue in the process, had been planning to treat the Globes as an exclusive network program with an all-NBC cast of characters. By moving it to the news division, which is currently in sync with its writing staff, it was hoping to avoid further conflict with the WGA.

The network said Friday that its programming schedule has not changed in light of the recent shakeup. As of now, Going for Gold, a two-hour Dateline NBC special featuring film clips and Matt Lauer interviewing some of the nominees, will precede the conference, which will be followed by a repeat of American Gladiators.

It was NBC's longtime Globe partner, Dick Clark Productions, that prompted the last-minute change. The company felt it had been squeezed out of the equation by the network and demanded its "normal license fee" as a make-good.

"NBC wanted to have an exclusive three-hour broadcast disguised as a news conference that would bar all other media," Dick Clark Productions said in a statement.

The Peacock refused to pay up and decided to open up the press conference to avoid any possible legal action. 

Thanks to the media free-for-all, viewers have alternatives to suit their Globes-watching needs, including the live E! News Special: Golden Globes 2008 hosted by Ryan Seacrest on E! Entertainment Television.

And for those far away from their TV sets Sunday night, E! Online (a division of E! Networks) will be streaming the news conference live.

The stars will be out. The red carpet will be packed. The postshow parties will be legend.

But enough about the SAG Awards.

Sunday's Golden Globes will be precede sans pomp, circumstance and champagne-addled acceptance speeches.

The Hollywood writers' strike and attendant side effects—the promise by scribes to picket, the pledge by actors to stay away—forced the Hollywood Foreign Press this week to cancel its awards dinner and NBC to cancel its three-hour telecast.

In the show's place, TV viewers will find a news conference, a Dateline NBC special and an American Gladiators repeat.

Well, at least the picket line is still scheduled.

Writers Guild of America members are expected to be out in force at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, where a dramatic reading of the Globes winners is scheduled.

How exactly the 65th Annual Golden Globes Announcement, as NBC is now calling the "show,"  scheduled to air at 9 p.m. ET/PT, will play out was not known. As of Thursday morning, the publicity firm handling the Globes said everything was up in the air. A statement that might have been understatement.

On Thursday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times' award-show blog, Gold Derby, reported that Access Hollywood anchors Billy Bush and Nancy O'Dell had been floated as possible news conference, um, hosts, and quoted an unnamed TV producer as saying reporters covering the news conference wouldn't be allowed to ask questions as they would at a, you know, real news conference.

"They'll be there as captives to watch Billy and Nancy read off nominees and winners in 25 award categories," the producer told Gold Derby.

The blog subsequently updated its report with word that Hollywood Foreign Press officials were working to "limit" Bush's and O'Dell's possible roles. There was no word on how the whole freedom of the press thing was coming along.

Even later Thursday, journalist Nikki Finke, whose Deadline Hollywood Daily site has become strike-news central, wrote that she was hearing a rumor that the entire news conference would be scrapped.

For now, NBC is sticking to the schedule it unveiled earlier in the week. From 7 to 9 p.m., the network will round up stars for Going for Gold, billed as a Matt Lauer-hosted Dateline NBC special. (All of NBC's Globes coverage is being produced by its news division, an apparent, but apparently unsuccessful, attempt to discourage picketers.)

According to NBC, new interviews with Globe nominees, including Juno's Ellen Page, Hairspray's Nikki Blonsky and Atonement's James McAvoy, will be featured.

Atonement, as you'll recall, but possibly don't, is the top Globes contender among the films, with seven nominations.

For what it's worth, Las Vegas oddsmaker Johnny Avello predicts the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men will top Atonement for Best Drama. He has Juno down for Best Motion Picture, Comedy, and Big Love and 30 Rock down for Best TV Drama and Comedy Series, respectively.

Rounding out the evening of entertainment on NBC will be an "encore broadcast" of American Gladiators (10 p.m.), which fits with the Globes in that its muscled stars also could probably beat Atonement. Literally.

According to the New York Times, NBC has already lost at least two sponsors, Prudential and Citigroup, who'd signed up to advertise their wares on an actual Golden Globes ceremony, the kind with stars and acceptance speeches and stuff. The Los Angeles Times reports NBC is even considering a plan to go commercial-free for the hour.

Last year's Globes telecast averaged more than 20 million viewers for NBC. On Tuesday, a strike-afflicted People's Choice Awards on CBS averaged about 6 million viewers for CBS.

The cancellation of the Globes ceremony, meanwhile, also left E! Entertainment with holes to fill. The cable network had planned for all-day coverage, from preshow to red carpet to after-parties, all of which, including big bashes to be hosted by HBO, Warner Bros/InStyle, the Weinstein Co. and more, were nixed. (With no stars on hand to gift, even the celeb-catering backstage swag lounges, featuring goodies from the likes of L'Oréal Paris, were folded.)

In place of Globes coverage, E! will run marathons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (4-8 p.m.) and Snoop Dogg's Father Hood (8-10 p.m.) and an all-new Girls Next Door (10 p.m.). As the Globes winners are revealed, E! News host Ryan Seacrest will break in with live updates. (E! Online is a division of E! Networks.)

The TV Guide Channel similarly redrew its Globe plans. Instead of Joey Fatone and Lisa Rinna on the red carpet that won't be in front of the Hilton, it'll be Chris Harrison and Maria Sansone in the studio with a two-hour Countdown to the Globes special at 7 p.m. The pair will return for an hourlong recap show at 10 p.m.

All things considered, the Globes has suffered leaner times, at least TV-wise. In 1979, two years after the show's network debut on NBC, the ceremony went without national coverage. And in 1983, two years after CBS gave it a second chance, it was forced to go back into syndication, where it remained until cable's TBS came along in 1989.

Of course, whether it was a ratings draw or no, the Globes always was a party. Until this year.

Steven Spielberg can put off worrying about where he's going to put his 1 millionth trophy until next year.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has decided that it will not present the prolific filmmaker with the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement until 2009, now that the 2008 Golden Globe Awards have been canceled.

And honoring the director behind Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones trilogy and E.T. during a network newscast just didn't boast the same cachet.

The HFPA scrapped plans for the Globes on Monday after the Screen Actors Guild announced that not one of this year's nominated actors would attend out of solidarity with the striking Writers Guild of America.

The WGA, which pointedly refused to issue a waiver that would have allowed scribes to work on the show, was planning to picket outside the Beverly Hilton on Sunday, which definitely would have made for an awkward red carpet leading up to what is generally billed as Hollywood's second-most glamorous night of the year.

Instead, the awards will be handed out during an hourlong news conference to be covered live by NBC News, a move that that WGA West executive director David Young called a "scam" in an email sent to SAG leaders Monday afternoon.

"It is a blatant ploy to get actors and other talent to attend the event," Young wrote. "It is the Globes under the name of a news conference. We have informed Dick Clark Productions that we will picket the event on Sunday."

The stripped-down kudosfest will be preceded by a special installment of Dateline featuring interviews with some of the nominees. Party coverage was supposed to follow, but in light of the substantially subdued proceedings, most of the after-events—including bashes hosted by the Weinstein Co., NBC Universal-Focus Films, HBO, Warner Bros., Fox Searchlight and E! Entertainment—have been canceled. (E! Online is owned by E! Networks.)

The writers' strike, which began Nov. 5 and has taken on an increasingly vitriolic vibe since talks between the guild and the studios shut down for the second time Dec. 7, has cost Los Angeles-area businesses an estimated $1.4 billion in revenue, per local economists, and the cancellation of the Globes will likely strip another $80 million from the bottom line.

Meanwhile, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is insisting that, this year anyway, the Globes are not a sign of things to come and the 80th Annual Academy Awards will proceed as scheduled.

"We are moving forward with planning for our show for Feb. 24, and at this point in time we're doing all the things we normally would be doing," Academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger told E! Online Tuesday. "There's voting, we're having meetings about the red carpet and the usual things are in the works."

She said that more information about the Jan. 22 press conference during which this year's nominees will be announced should be coming next week.

"We're not panicking. We're preparing our show, and we're moving forward," Academy president Sid Ganis told the Associated Press.

Gil Cates, producer of ABC's Oscar telecast, added that the show will go on, with or without writers.

Without, it is, presuming the strike hasn't been settled by showtime. WGA West president Patric Verrone said Tuesday that the guild, which has already turned down the Academy's standard application to use clips of films and past Oscar broadcasts, will not be granting any requests to employ striking writers for the Feb. 24 ceremony.

Canceling the Oscars, and all the hullabaloo that goes with it, would cost the city about $130 million, economists say.

Nominations for the 2008 Academy Awards will be announced Jan. 22, after which we'll see whether the lure of Oscar gold will be any match for the guild's ironfisted will.

Come this weekend, Hollywood won't be busting out its Golden Globes for all the world to ogle.

Instead, after last-ditch talks with the striking writers union fell through, NBC and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association scuttled the glittery Globes ceremony and replaced it with a stripped-down news special.

The HFPA, responsible for bestowing the awards, now simply plans on holding a press conference to announce the 25 winners for the film and TV honors on Sunday at the Beverly Hilton, which will be aired as an hourlong NBC News report.

"We are all very disappointed that our traditional awards ceremony will not take place this year and that millions of viewers worldwide will be deprived of seeing many of their favorite stars celebrating 2007’s outstanding achievements in motion pictures and television,” Jorge Camara, HFPA president, said in a statement.

"We take some comfort, however, in knowing that this year's Golden Globe Award recipients will be announced on the date originally scheduled."

In an attempt to salvage the star power, NBC had tried to put together bookend specials focusing on nominees, past winners and the night's A-list parties, sources confirmed to E! Online. But the Writers Guild of America balked.

Before the winners were unveiled at 9 p.m., the network had wanted to air a one-hour Dateline special featuring clips and interviews with nominees (the program had initially been set to run Saturday), as well as an hourlong retrospective of the Golden Globes from Dick Clark Productions, the telecast's longtime producer.

The press conference would have been followed by a one-hour Access Hollywood-style show with dispatches from various parties, presumably to catch the winners' reactions.

Like the specials, however, the parties themselves have been mostly cancelled, with typically big-draw bashes from NBC Universal, Warner Bros. and HBO already getting called off. Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Co. are expected to follow suit.

By retooling the Globes as a bare-bones news broadcast, organizers were hoping to still be able to draw out stars who otherwise were gearing up to boycott the ceremony.

Best Actor nominee George Clooney, for one, had no intention of crossing the writers' picket line.

"You have to think of it from a different angle," the Michael Clayton star told E! News Monday on the red carpet at the Critics' Choice Awards, which was clear of picketers. "This is a one-industry town…It is not about whether or not a film gets heard…What matters is it is not just actors and writers that are unemployed. There are 100,000 people that are in trouble.

"They need to get people in a room and sit them down—and lock the door until they come up with a solution," Clooney said.

In an email distributed to Screen Actors Guild execs Monday afternoon, WGA West executive director David Young called the retooled show "a blatant ploy to get actors and other talent to attend the event. It is the Globes under the name of a news conference. We have informed Dick Clark Prods. that we will picket the event on Sunday."

On Friday, the Screen Actors Guild and a contingent of Hollywood's top PR firms issued separate announcements saying none of the 72 nominated actors was willing to cross a picket line out of solidarity to the striking Writers Guild of America. NBC and the HFPA were hoping a technicality would have made at least some nominees reconsider. The network's news division isn't represented by the WGA—the reason why The Today Show stayed on air while The Tonight Show went black.

But the WGA refused to play along, viewing the maneuver as an attempt to circumvent the ongoing strike, and NBC backed off, sources say.

There was no immediate comment from either the Writers Guild or the Screen Actors Guild on the new Globes plan.

The WGA had previously said it would not picket the Globes should the HFPA decide to hold the ceremony without broadcasting it on TV or the Internet. But NBC reportedly didn't want to give up the ratings-grabbing ceremony, which usually ranks second only to the Oscars among all award shows, and deal with the resulting hole in its Sunday schedule and consequent loss of ad revenue.

The Globes ceremony, which NBC pays between $5-6 million a year to televise and which in return pulls $15-$20 million in ad revenue for the network, has been broadcast since 1980. The show has run on NBC since 1996. The HFPA has reportedly agreed to return this year's payment.

Another option floated over the weekend would have been to postpone the ceremony, à la the 2001 Emmys, until a settlement was reached.

But with no end in sight to the writers' strike, a potential actors' strike on the calendar and the network facing a short-term scheduling hit and revenue hit, NBC and the HFPA went with the scaled-down "press-conference" option, similar to what CBS has opted to do with Tuesday night's People's Choice Awards.

Earlier Monday, NBC Entertainment cochief Ben Silverman told E! News anchor Ryan Seacrest that the network was "obviously trying to find a solution to satisfy fans of these great movies and all the incredible stars who have worked so hard all year and got this incredible opportunity.

"Sadly, it feels like the nerdiest, ugliest, meanest kids in the high school are trying to cancel the prom. But NBC wants to try to keep that prom alive."

Dick Clark Productions, meanwhile, previously attempted to broker an interim agreement with the WGA similar to that inked by David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, which allowed his productions back on air.Clark's company issued a statement before the non-telecast decision, saying it was "disappointed that the WGA has refused to bargain with us in good faith."

Never one to hold back, Silverman echoed the company's sentiments, saying, "It feels unfair to me that Dick Clark Productions is not being given the same consideration that other companies like Tom Cruise's United Artists [which completed a separate deal Monday] or David Letterman's Worldwide Pants are being given.

"That's what's really disturbing me, how inconsistent it all is. It seems very much being played in an intentional and not a professional way."

As for the rest of awards season, the WGA has granted waivers for the 14th Annual SAG Awards on Jan. 27 and the 2008 Film Independent Spirit Awards Feb. 23.

But the WGA has also signaled it would not grant a waiver to the Academy Awards, which are scheduled to take place Feb. 24.

(Originally published Jan. 7, 2008 at 4:15 p.m. PT)

It's a new year, but so much for resolution.

Just hours after producers of the upcoming Golden Globe Awards said Wednesday they were working to hammer out a deal to keep the Jan. 13 show on track, the guild announced it didn't have any intention of budging on its decision to withhold a waiver.

"Dick Clark Productions is a struck company. As previously announced, the Writers Guild will be picketing the Golden Globes," the WGA said in a blunt statement responding to news of the latest round of negotiations.

"The WGA has great respect and admiration for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but we are engaged in a crucial struggle that will protect our income and intellectual property rights for generations to come. We will continue to do everything in our power to bring industry negotiations to a fair conclusion. In the meantime, we are grateful for the ongoing support of the Hollywood talent community.”

The union's current position more or less echoes the one it took last month when the Globe nominations were announced. Soon after, the WGA rejected a waiver request from the HFPA to allow scribes to contribute quips to the ceremony. The union also shot down the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which had submitted its standard application for permission to use old film clips and tape from past Oscar ceremonies during the Feb. 24 broadcast.

The writers are allowing otherwise-striking scribblers to contribute to the Screen Actors Guild and Independent Spirit Awards.

In a lengthy statement earlier Wednesday, HFPA president Jorge Camara had said talks between his group and the WGA resumed Saturday, a day after David Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants, announced it had agreed on terms that would allow the late-night host to return to the air tonight with his writing staff intact.

"We are pleased that the WGA has made interim agreements available for independent production companies," Camara said in a statement. "The process established by the WGA permits writers to get back to work, grants the WGA the rights it is seeking on behalf of all writers, and allows certain shows to move forward.

"Much like the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Film Independent's Spirit Awards, we want to enter into an agreement with the WGA that will allow the entertainment industry to celebrate the outstanding work of creative individuals in addition to millions of fans nationwide," he said. "It is only fair that we be afforded the same opportunity as these other awards shows." 

This latest blow to what in more upbeat times would be a much-hyped, glamorous precursor to next month's 80th Annual Academy Awards comes just as the Globes' organizers were looking to gain momentum for a show that could be considerably lacking in the star-power department.

NBC confirmed just this week that the prime-time telecast would, indeed, go on as scheduled. Whether there's a red carpet, swag bags or even a celebratory mood remains to be seen.

SAG president Alan Rosenberg said in a statement Wednesday that they will hold a meeting with actor nominees later in the week to discuss Globe protocol, but it's doubtful that conciliation will be a part of the plan.

"Unless and until there is an agreement between the WGA and HFPA, we will advise our members of their rights with respect to not crossing WGA picket lines and/or not appearing on programs using non-union writers," Rosenberg said.