After negotiations hit a stalemate back in November, the Screen Actors Guild and representatives from Hollywood studios announced yesterday that "they will meet for two days next week," according to abc7.com. (SAG's site says they were to meet in Sherman Oaks last week, and has not been updated to reflect yesterday's announcement.) In the time since they last met to hash out a new deal, things have been rocky for SAG and its leadership. Murmurs about impending strikes and the lack of resolution prompted teamsters and members of the stagehands' union to picket outside SAG headquarters on Wilshire Blvd. this week. SAG also fired their top man, Doug Allen, when he was unable to make anything happen, either. Allen favored a strike, but many believe that is not going to happen under new leadership. more ›

Talk about drama. A marathon 30-hour meeting between Screen Actors Guild national board members landed the outcome of pretty much nothing. Doug Allen, SAG's chief negotiator and national executive director, was almost fired, but filibusters and a sleepy board did not have the votes to fire him or authorize a strike or do much of anything else. The best take comes from the Hollywood Reporter: "The emergency national board meeting began before 9 a.m. Monday and pushed on through the night into Tuesday afternoon, when the organizers had scheduled a hard-stop time of 1 p.m. Within an hour of the official end of the proceedings, exhausted-looking board members could be seen stumbling out to their cars." more ›