Anyone else find it a little bit weird that we've seen movies based on Bewitched, The Brady Bunch, and The Beverly Hillbillies ... but not I Dream of Jeannie? (And frankly I'm a little amazed that there's been no Gilligan's Island movie by this point. Or three.) Well, there's a reason for that, but first we have some fantastic news for the die-hard Jeannie fans: The producers finally have a screenplay pitch they like! That's so great, because I don't know how much longer I could survive without a Jeannie movie.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, producer Sid Ganis is crazy about the latest pitch, which comes from Mulan writer Rita Hsiao. (She also did some polishing on Enchanted and 13 Going on 30, so clearly she digs the chick flicks.) Mr. Ganis wants the loyal fans to know that "she has a terrific, bright, fresh approach to Jeannie's story, with a twist and turn along the way." The producer notes that the Jeannie movie will take place in modern times, and also that Ms. Hsiao's script was so accurate ... it felt like she'd actually lived with Samantha, Tabitha, and good ol' Derwood Jeannie, Tony Nelson, and Dr. Bellows. Wow!

And why has it taken so long for the Jeannie flick to hit the silver screen? Mr. Ganis says "This is such a beloved and iconic character that it has to be told the right way ... You have a loyalty to the character that has to exist, and sometimes it takes time to get there." Dude. It's a '60s sitcom. About an astronaut and a half-dressed lady genie. Get over it. But if they are going to make this flick (and they are), who would you cast as Jeannie? (Fingers crossed on Scarlett Johansson.)

Hey! It's your old friend Patrick Walsh! Remember me? I used to run a writing column here with the ingenious title "The Write Stuff?" (Check out all 25 previous posts here.) I answered your screenwriting questions, offered advice, and conducted interviews with film and television writers? I look like Brad Pitt, but with better abs? There you go. You remember. Anyhoo, when last we spoke I had been staffed on the FX comedy It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I'm still there. It's a dream job, and I intend to share my experiences on the show with you closer to the season premiere in September. But for now I want to tell you about a great way for you (yes, you!) to break in to the big time: NBC's Writers on the Verge program.

If this seems like a shameless advertisement, know that it's only because I myself am a graduate of the program and I absolutely loved it. I am NOT doing this because I am receiving money from anyone at NBC. (Though Lord knows if NBC would like to give me some money, I will gladly accept it. You hear me, Zucker? GLADLY.)

Now then. You've got questions. I've got answers.

At last, there is some light at the end of the WGA strike tunnel. Meetings are scheduled in New York and Los Angeles this Saturday, and the purpose is to convince Guild members that the contract WGA leaders have been hammering out with the AMPTP is worthy of bringing the now three month-old strike to a close. The WGA's 10,500 members will vote on the issue, and if they approve, WGA leadership could send its members back to work as soon as Monday. The strike won't officially be over until the decision has been ratified -- likely two weeks, but the Oscars would go on as planned, new television episodes could be scripted, and the TV pilot season might be salvaged.

Living in Los Angeles, all I hear is strike talk. I was told this weekend that the strike would absolutely end yesterday. Didn't happen. I was told several times that it will definitely be over by Friday. That's not going to happen. Now I'm hearing next week for sure, and this official Saturday meeting would seem to support that. But it's not a done deal by any means. Late Monday, WGA negotiating committee chief John Bowman sent an e-mail to Writers Guild members that read: "While we have made important progress since the companies re-engaged us in serious talks, negotiations continue. Regardless of what you hear or read, there are many significant points that have yet to be worked out."

In other words -- the finish line is in sight. But there's no guarantee they're gonna run through it.

It's Day 87 of the Writers Guild Strike. Informal meetings are taking place between the WGA and the AMPTP...that will hopefully lead to official meetings. (Doesn't it seem like there should be more effective means of conducting business than meeting to prepare to meet?) The Directors Guild recently cut a deal with the AMPTP, and many hope the WGA will follow suit. Others don't feel the DGA deal is reasonable. National Screen Actors Guild Executive Director Doug Allen and SAG President Alan Rosenberg just sent an e-mail to members of SAG criticizing the DGA deal, and claiming they would not accept similar proposals. Then DGA President Michael Apted criticized SAG for their criticisms. Scripted television production in Los Angeles has officially stopped. Everyone seems to want an end to this madness in time for the Academy Awards, but tensions seem to be just as high as they ever were.

The strike has brought about a lot of interesting and insightful comments from Cinematical readers. As I've mentioned before, the comments we get here at the site range from "UR gay!" to thought-provoking discussion. We read 'em all, and appreciate (most of) them greatly. I thought this might be a good time to highlight some recent strike talk from our readers, and to encourage even more. Whether I agree with all of these opinions or not, it's great to see an important issue like this being discussed.

Spyglass Entertainment (The Sixth Sense, Shanghai Noon) is the latest studio to make an interim, independent agreement with the Writers Guild of America. Spyglass joins David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner's United Artists, Media Rights Capital, and The Weinstein Company. These interim deals basically mean that the studios will agree to the WGA's demands during the strike, and in exchange they can do business with members of the Writers Guild.

In other strike news, the Academy Awards will be picketed by the WGA if a deal is not reached by the February 24th ceremony. (And since there are currently no negotiations even scheduled, that seems unlikely.) The WGA recently granted a waiver allowing a couple of writers to work on the NAACP Image Awards, but the Academy Awards will receive no such waiver. WGA West President Patric Verrone says, "The Guild examines each request like this individually and no decision is easy. Our ultimate goal is to resolve this strike by achieving a good contract. Because of the historic role the NAACP has played in struggles like ours, we think this decision is appropriate to jointly achieve our goals."

If you have been watching The Daily Show (or as Jon Stewart now calls it, A Daily Show) since its writer-less return, you've likely noticed the show has lost a lot of its zing. Stewart is a very funny man, but he can't do it all by himself. And if he's up there winging it as the host of the Oscars, it could be a mighty awkward evening. Now, there's no way the Oscars will crash and burn like the Golden Globes did. Even stripped down, I don't think anyone could have anticipated the fiery train wreck that is Billy Bush -- the guy makes Ryan Seacrest look like Johnny Carson. But if the threat of a far crappier than usual Academy Awards ceremony -- traditionally Hollywood's biggest night -- doesn't bring the strike to the end, I keep hearing this thing could go on for a very long time.

This is a bummer, man. A big ol' bummer. Let's hit up some Q & A:

Best Screenplay

Nominees:

Diablo Cody -- Juno

Joel & Ethan Coen -- No Country for Old Men

Christopher Hampton -- Atonement

Ronald Harwood -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Aaron Sorkin -- Charlie Wilson's War

Predicted Winner: Diablo Cody -- Juno

Often, it's not the finest writing that wins the screenplay award, it's the flashiest. Cinematical doesn't think Globe voters will be able to pass up Diablo Cody's hyper-verbose, show-offy script, chock full of memorable one-liners and quotable dialogue. Plus, Hollywood just can't get enough of her stripper-turned-screenwriter tale. Juno what I'm saying?

Now it's your turn to vote ...

The Bucket List stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward determined to complete everything on their "Bucket List" -- a list of things to do before they "kick the bucket." The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was just named one of the Ten Best of the Year by the National Board of Review. Cinematical spoke with the film's screenwriter, Justin Zackham.

Cinematical: You sit down to write The Bucket List, do you ever dream that you're going to get Rob Reiner to direct, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman to star...

JZ: Of course not! I'd have to be an idiot! Not even close. I wrote it with Morgan Freeman's voice in mind, somehow thinking maybe I'd find a way to get it to him. But no, nothing like this.

Cinematical: And how did you get it to these huge names? What were the steps that brought this movie to the screen?

JZ: I went to film school at NYU. I did a TV pilot that I wrote and executive produced in New York with Paul Sorvino years ago. And then I came out here (Los Angeles) and was dicking around for a while. I made Going Greek, which was a very sort of crappy fraternity comedy that I did back in 2000. I wrote, produced, and directed, and that took so much out of me that I spent another couple years dicking around. And then I just sat down one day and wrote my own "Bucket List" just to kind of get my head organized. On that list was like "Get a movie made by a major studio, marry the perfect woman," all that kind of stuff. A lot of the stuff on there wound up in the movie. I had always fantasized about going to the Pyramids, the Great Wall, I've always been sort of obsessed with the whole notion of Everest. All those things were on it, and I just stuck it on a bulletin board.

About a year later, I just came up with this quote one day, a line that's actually in the film -- "You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you." Stuck that up on the bulletin board. And then another year went by before I had the idea "What about making this into a script?" And I thought if it were about me, at the time I was about 34, it wouldn't be that interesting. So I decided to make it about two guys who had lived a full life, and they only have a few months left, and suddenly there's a ticking clock, and the things that do have real importance, at least in their minds. The story really became about the one thing neither of these guys puts on their list but is the thing they most want. And that's a best friend. I have this ridiculous process, and I wrote the actual script really quickly, in about two weeks.

Well friends, the WGA strike rages on. And on. And like the old Christmas song says: "It doesn't show signs of stopping." The Broadway strike briefly crippled New York City's economy, but it was over in nineteen days. The WGA Strike is on day #38. That's week #6. That's month #2. And there's no end in sight. We're reaching the point where people are going to start losing homes, if they haven't already.

Do you know the old joke about the aspiring actress who was so naive she slept with the screenwriter to get ahead? There's a lot of truth there. Screenwriters don't get near enough respect. That may be coming to light more now that the strike is on, but it's been going on for decades. It's gotten so bad that a lot of the huge blockbusters start filming without a completed script! Like, a lot of them.

Can you name me five screenwriters? OK, five screenwriters who don't also direct? In movie reviews, your average critic will gush about how great Brad Pitt's performance was for five paragraphs, then mention the screenplay in passing, if at all. Guess what? All those pretty words coming out of Mr. Pitt's pretty mouth originated somewhere. Directors and actors tend to get all the credit for a movie's success. Unless a movie sucks, then it's -- "Who wrote this garbage?" Where is the love?

If a movie is a salad, then the screenplay is the lettuce. You can throw all the bacon and cheese and croutons in a bowl that you want, but if you don't have a strong, solid base of high-quality lettuce? My friend, you don't have a salad. With me throwing out razor-sharp analogies like that, I think you can tell that you've come to the right place for writing advice.

Kenny asks:

How do writers get jobs on TV writing staffs? Do they have to write spec scripts? And what about talk shows? (The Daily Show, Conan) Are they recruited? How does it work? Thanks.

That's my goal right now, Kenny. I worked on the upcoming season of MTV's Rob & Big, I'm in a writing program at NBC, and I'm looking to use those credits and the connections I've made to get staffed on a network television program this year. It's a big process, so I'm dividing it into two parts. This week and next week's editions of The Write Stuff will tackle the television business.

Basically, to get a job on a television writing staff, you need to have at least one piece of original material and one or more spec scripts. A spec script is a sample script for a show that is currently on the air. You're not writing it in the hopes that the program will purchase your script. They won't, and it likely won't get to the show you wrote it for anyway. You're writing your spec to show that you can capture the feel of the writing and the character voices of any show. Every program has a show runner, and every show runner will want to read something different, so it's good to give him or her a lot of choices.

How to go about choosing which show to spec?

Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of The Write Stuff!

Thanksgiving is always rough on a screenwriter. You're usually seeing a lot of friends and family, and while they (candied) yammer on about their accomplishments, you have to start all of your sentences with: "We're still waiting to hear on that one..." and "Our agent says we're really close..." and "Grandma, let me explain the WGA strike to you one more time..."

But there is a great deal to be thankful for this year. On Monday, still happy and groggy from a weekend of gorging, representatives from the WGA and the AMPTP will resume talks. Ideally, each side will come away happy and we can end this strike. From a personal note, my writing career was right on the verge of kicking into high gear when the strike was announced, and I certainly don't want to lose that upward momentum. And looking at the bigger picture, we're a month away from Christmas here. Who wants to see not just writers but everyone who works in and around the entertainment industry desperately struggling to pay the bills? The grips, the gaffers, the assistants, the dry cleaners...these people are out of work, too.

So send your good vibes to the negotiating table on Monday. And if you think there's nothing you can do, you're wrong. You can electronically sign this petition to the AMPTP, which starts: "We, the undersigned, fully support the strike of the Writers Guild of America, and agree with the WGA's stated goals of obtaining just and fair compensation regarding revenues generated through "new media". The petition currently has 57, 695 signatures, which is extremely impressive. Won't you add yours?