Saturday, February 09, 2008

Strike Coming to an End, Singerman Sequel still Dead

Just checking in for the first time in a little while. Finally there appears to be some light at the end of the tunnel with this whole Writer's Guild strike business. According to The Hollywood Reporter and various other sources, the WGA leadership in an impromptu press conference today revealed that they are encouraged by a proposed agreement from the AMPTP and that if all goes as planned, the picket signs could be put away as early as sometime on Monday. In our opinion, its about damn time, as the thought of endless months of reality television were starting to make my skin crawl. I have a feeling the AMPTP will really be the one to have "won out" this time around.

But that's not all the good news we have for you today. Well it's not really "news" since we've been saying it for a good long while, but its always nice to see it in print nonetheless. According to yesterday's Hollywood Reporter, the strike's impending resolution has heartened studios, specialty divisions and mini-majors that a host of development projects could suddenly be jump-started. They then go on to give a few blurbs about some of the upcoming WB projects:
The consensus from industryites seemed to be that Warner Bros. had the most immediate need on both the development and spec script sides. The studio's offerings for 2009 are light, with "Watchmen," based on the graphic novel; the children's fantasy "Where the Wild Things Are"; and "Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins."

There are at least nine more projects that are not dated but could be slated for 2009, according to one source. But one studio tentpole, the sequel to "Superman Returns," is not so lucky. There apparently are no current plans to add the project to the slate, according to a studio source.
Yup, still as dead as ever. Sorry, Restart there will be no Singerman 2 in 2009, and god willing, never, ever again. Oh yeah and they do also mention the JLA film:
Meanwhile, productions with known script issues such as Warner Bros. tentpole "Justice League" are expected to get fast-tracked once writers return to the scene.
Let's all pray to whatever deity you choose that by "get fast-tracked" they mean "gets tweaked, rethought, and recast. " As bad as that last update got we sounded, WB is still more confident in it than going forward with another Singerman film. This should hopefully put to bed those silly rumors that another Singer film was only being delayed due to the strike.