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FILM MOGULS: WHO NEEDS ANY RITERS?

By Roscoe Arbuckle
Entertainment Editor

LOS ANGELES –  Long suffering screen and TV writers, having been swindled out of their DVD residuals during the last round of contract negotiations with the studios and networks, have threatened to strike to back their plea not to get screwed again on payments for digital sales of their work product.

The response from Hollywood's media barons:  We don't need no stinkin' writers.

The suits, dismissing dire predictions of the utter collapse of movie and TV production, bet that they can hold out a lot longer than the plebian writers, many of whom depend on a regular paycheck, much to the contempt of their employers.

TV networks will replace their tedious scripted comedies and drama with fresh, original reality and sports programming like Roller Derby of the Unemployed Network All-Stars

Explained increasingly deranged entertainment tyrant Sumner "Family Guy" Redstone: "I own Paramount Pictures and CBS and MTV and everything that's a part of it, including the writers. If they don't like it, they can follow the examples of my wife and daughter and go f*** themselves." 

Redstone, known to have a high opinion of his talents, has come up with a number of brainstorms that he's passed on to his bootlickers [Surely, executives? – Ed.]. CBS Prexy Les Moonves is already figuring out the best time slot for one of Redstone's high-concept live quiz shows, in which participants crawl through the window of a burning hotel for the chance to date the bimbo waiting inside. 

The mood over at Fox, whose proprietor has a long and profitable record of union-busting, is if anything even more sanguine. Fox's Chief of Production and Business Development Wendi Deng Murdoch is keen to bring to American audiences the cream of the crop of Murdoch's joint venture with the Chinese People's Glorious Central Committee Network No. 9. Among the shows that will fill in for "The Simpsons," "Family Guy" and "House" are such established Chinese hits as "We shall reconquer Taiwan," "Glories of Child Labor," and the always-popular "Hail the destruction of the useless Yangtze River Gorges in the name of Progress."

"Even if those shows don't find an audience," one Fox executive told the Spy, "Rupert's got crap on the air in 50 different countries. Some of it can't be any worse than "Hannity and Colmes.""

Closer to home, Fox has already announced a spinoff of its long-running reality hit, Cops. Tentatively entitled Ragheads, it will feature hidden-camera video of actual CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists held in secret prisons, with expert commentary from torture advocates Oliver North and Alan Dershowitz. "We'll save the waterboarding for sweeps week," chortled one Fox executive who requested anonymity to hide his past as a Nixon flak.  

Fox Pictures Co-President Tom Rothman '80L warns the writers that the big studios are not to be trifled with: "We give in here and the next thing you know these damn writers will want to live up in the canyons with us and send their grubby kids to schools with ours. Where will it end?"

Complicating the writers' bargaining position, some celebrities are prepared to make do without their writers.  "I don't need writers.  I'm naturally hilarious," said boy toy collector Eva Longoria.   Lindsay Lohan was equally blithe: "Whaaaa?"

Even taking into account the hospital and mortuary bills, Demolition Derby is both cheaper to produce and less distasteful than an hour of "Private Practice," studio heads note.

Kiefer Sutherland has told Fox that he expects to have plenty of time to write his plot lines for 24 over the next six to nine months, subject to time off for good behavior and/or including the LA Sheriff at the star's next pool party.

Most writers, one paycheck away from repossession of their Bimmers, are known to fear that the producers have made them an offer they can't refuse. They argue that movies and TV shows can be made without them, telling their militant colleagues in essence, "Forget it, it's Tinseltown."   

But others want to hold out, on the theory that the studios won't be able to round up the usual audiences without them. They boast that they came to California for the money and refuse to believe that they were misinformed.  

The producers and studio chiefs argue that the writers have refused to accept the new reality of the movie business. "We're still huge – it's the writers that got small," Rothman said.  

As for doing without the work product of the scriveners, the producers and executives offer a simple valedictory: They'll always have Paris – Hilton, that is.