Some major major news on the strike front seems to be leaking out today, with an official announcement expected to come at some point tomorrow (according to Deadline Hollywood). Looks like United Artists (aka the movie studio run by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner) is in the process of inking a deal with the WGA that's very similar to the one they made with David Letterman's Worldwide Pants. Said deal, if it goes through, would allow United Artists to work with writers on whatever upcoming projects they have planned, making them the first such studio allowed to do this since the strike began. Damn. Score one for Tommy Boy! It's not yet known which films will take advantage of this interim deal right off the bat, but we do know that Oliver Stone's Pinkville was recently postponed due to problems with the script. Chances are, with the cast for that flick already in place, it will be one of the first delayed productions to be back in business. Of course, this is all subject to the deal actually going through.

On the other hand, United Artists could get right to work on a literary property they just optioned for seven figures. While all this interim agreement talk continues, The Hollywood Reporter tells us UA has optioned the film rights to Ranger's Apprentice, a fantasy series written by Australian author John Flanagan. According to HR, it "follows the adventures of an orphan boy named Will who becomes an apprentice ranger and fights to keep the mythical kingdom of Araluen safe from invaders, traitors and other dangers with the help of his master Halt." Yup, that sounds like just about every fantasy series being optioned these days, but what's even more interesting is that writer-director Paul Haggis was in talks to adapt and direct at one point before the strike happened and halted those discussions. Haggis doing big-budget fantasy? Bit of a stretch if you ask me -- what do you think?

Imagine that it is a cold, January night in Greenwich Village. It is your birthday, and you are walking down the road, heading home from a blind date when a group of young thugs hold you at gunpoint and push you into a car. In a Brooklyn apartment, you're held captive while the group decides how to gain the most from your kidnapping -- they wanted a grand, but are excited to hear that you have much more than that in the bank. You hand over your ATM number and pin, but you also get a lot in return. Intermingled with threats of violence and requests for legal advice, you get offers of pot and sexual favors, since it is your birthday and all. After 25 hours being held captive, they give you some cab fare and dump you off in Prospect Park.

Sounds like a mixture of comedy and fright, doesn't it? This is the story of Stanley Alpert, an assistant U.S. attorney, who wrote an account of his night in 1998 in the just-published book, The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival. Only weeks after hitting the shelves, United Artists has optioned it. Beating out a number of other studios, it is one of the first possible features to be grabbed by the company since Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner joined. As Variety suggests, it could go either way -- as a comedy or a drama. Personally, I think they'd be doing us, and the story, a disservice to not relish the comedy in this story. There's lots of strange, thriller kidnapping stories out there, but how many times does one get a real story where the kidnappee gets offered sexual birthday presents by the same people trying to wipe out his bank account?