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Weinstein Company Sign Interim Deal with WGA

David Letterman started a trend two weeks ago and now UA and the Weinstein Company have followed. There's also word that Millennium Films is entering negotiations, which you will see in today's "Conan" news. Another smaller producer/distributor has made a deal to get their projects rolling while the big studios continue holding out...

Here's the latest from Variety on the Weinstein deal:

The Weinstein Co. has followed United Artists by inking a nearly identical interim agreement with the Writers Guild of America.

The pact, which also covers Dimension, will allow the pace of activity at the company to resume. The move had been expected earlier in the week (Daily Variety, Jan. 10).

Harvey Weinstein made no bones about his reasons for signing the deal, stressing his empathy for the striking writers and the hardships they've endured over the past 10 weeks.

He stressed that he supported a proposal from George Clooney that a blue-ribbon panel of actors and filmmakers be set up to mediate the dispute. The condition would be that no one would leave the room for 48 hours until a settlement was (theoretically) reached.

Clooney proposed that the panel include the likes of Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and other top A-listers.

"If a deal with the writers can be hammered out, other guilds would follow," Weinstein said. In the absence of such a solution, "The price being paid by the community as a whole is unthinkable."