January 8, 2008 Golden Globes downsized to news conference Play video

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Golden Globes, the ceremony known for getting Hollywood's awards season off to a rollicking start, will be reduced to a news conference Sunday by the writers strike and will likely draw picket lines and lack star power.

Despite the revamped ceremony announced Monday by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild said it was encouraging its members to skip the show in support of the two-month walkout by the Writers Guild of America.

"The WGA informed us they will picket the event on Sunday," the actors guild said in a statement.

Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America West, said union leaders were uncertain if they still would picket outside the Golden Globes since they were unclear about what form the awards announcement would take.

"I would say an awards show in news conference clothing would still be picketed, but I just don't know if it's been definitively decided," Verrone said.

As he arrived at Monday's Critics' Choice Awards, George Clooney said he belongs to six unions and would not cross any picket lines. Later, as he made a presentation, Clooney said, "Our hope is that all of the players involved will lock themselves in a room and not come out until they finish. We want this to be done."

Nikky Blonsky, also on the red carpet, said she was undecided about whether to attend the revised Golden Globes, where she is a nominee

"The writers are the backbone of the business, so we don't want to lose them in any way," she said.

The press association, which owns the Globes, issued a bleak statement about the ceremony that was to have showcased the likes of nominees Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington.

"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," association president Jorge Camara said.

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

Besides Jolie and Washington, this year's nominees include such other A-listers as Clooney, Tom Hanks, Daniel Day-Lewis, Keira Knightley, Cate Blanchett and Johnny Depp. Among the nominated films are "There Will Be Blood," "American Gangster" and "Sweeney Todd." But faced with a potential celebrity vacuum because of the picket line, the association and NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker had to devise another approach for the Globes broadcast.

The association will forgo any network payment - reported to be $5 million - for the broadcast, said a person close to the show who was not authorized to comment and requested anonymity. But NBC will have exclusive electronic rights to the show and will be able to sell advertising for it, the person said.

Although other TV media won't be given access, print outlets will, according to the agreement between NBC and the association, the person said.

The developments stand as an ominous sign for the Academy Awards, which are scheduled to air Feb. 24 on ABC. The writers guild refused to grant waivers for its members to work on the Oscars or the Globes.

Disrupting the awards show season, a huge promotional showcase for the entertainment industry, is one way the guild can flex its power and attempt to bring producers back to the table to resume talks that collapsed Dec. 7.

Oscar broadcast producer Gil Cates has vowed there will be a televised show, one way or another.

The writers strike, which began Nov. 5, has broad implications for the way Hollywood does business. Whatever deal is struck by writers on the key issue of payment for projects offered on the Internet could affect talks with actors and directors, whose contracts expire in June.

Instead of the traditional Globes show featuring a boozy, glitzy dinner party and awards presentation, the winners will be announced in an hour-long news conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the press association said.

A Los Angeles Times report, citing an NBC memo e-mailed to movie studios, said there were plans for other Globe-related shows, including a "Dateline NBC" program with clips and interviews with nominees, and a show covering Globe parties.

NBC was also in talks with dick clark productions, which produces the ceremony, for an hourlong Globes retrospective.

There was no announcement by the association or NBC on regarding further programming.

The Globes have been on a ratings roll. The 2007 ceremony drew 20 million viewers and marked the second straight year the show drew a bigger audience than the year before. The show's biggest audience ever was in 1998, the year of the blockbuster film "Titanic," when 24.5 million people watched.

Compared with the more formal Oscars, the Globes are presented at a relaxed event that brings out the frisky side of stars. In 1998, for example, Jack Nicholson mimicked Jim Carrey's "butt-talking" routine in accepting his acting award for "As Good As It Gets."

When the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists were on strike in 1980, only one winner - Powers Booth - showed up to collect his trophy.

Dick clark productions has lashed out at the guild, citing repeated efforts to reach an interim agreement akin to the union deal with another independent company, Worldwide Pants, which produces David Letterman's show. The writers guild announced Monday that it also reached a deal with Tom Cruise's production outfit, United Artists Films, to resume working while the strike continues against other studios.

The guild was accused by dick clark productions of failing to bargain in good faith.

Verrone, the writers guild president, has lauded the move by actors to boycott the Globes and said the awards show season is being jeopardized by the "intransigence" of media corporations.

For its own awards on Jan. 27, the actors guild has reached an interim agreement for a writers guild member to script the ceremony.

--- AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen and AP Movie Writer David Germain contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)