SAG meets moguls

Nikki Finke reports that News Corp. President Peter Chernin and Disney CEO Bob Iger had an informal get-together earlier this week with the two main players of the Screen Actors Guild: Union president Alan Rosenberg and national executive director Doug Allen. Presumably, these kinds of sessions would set the stage for formal bargaining. But Finke is getting mixed signals on the meeting, with sources close to the moguls saying that it went badly - the SAG folks apparently thumbing their noses at the WGA and DGA contracts - while sources close to the guild say that the conversations were cordial and constructive. Here we go again. Even though a walkout still seems unlikely, Wall Street is taking note of the uncertainty over movie production going out the next few months. A Citigroup Investment Research report has warned that even the possibility of a strike "may be preventing major studios from approving new film production in 2008, which could potentially disrupt the 2009 film schedule for major film studios."