While the studios will continue to spend $250 million on sure bets like the Harry Potter franchise, they are cutting back everywhere else. The town is feeling the pinch, as production starts decline, budgets are slashed and risks are not being taken. Ask Steven Soderbergh, who sounds depressed indeed in this Guardian interview on Che. (That four-hour Spanish-language money-loser for French financier Wild Bunch is the main source of Soderbergh's Moneyball woes.) For the moment he may direct a play for Cate Blanchett's theatre company in Sydney. Luckily, his Matt Damon whistleblower comedy The Informant! could score at September's Toronto Film Fest.

Here's the line-up for the Toronto Fest, which opens September 10 with Jon Amiel's Charles Darwin biopic, Creation.

Clearly, Tom Cruise is not the mega-star he was when MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan gave him and then-partner Paula Wagner a piece of United Artists. Now he has the flop Lions for Lambs behind him and Bryan Singer's tarnished Valkyrie looming ahead--the film that looks like more of an expensive art house play than a commercial one. And having lost his partner Wagner last week, Cruise now runs UA alone (with ongoing help from hard-charging MGM prexy Mary Parent).

According to the LAT's Rachel Abramowitz's assessment of Cruise's career crossroads, the star walked away from Edwin A. Salt because of its Mission Impossible feel to do The Tourist instead. And he bailed on The 28th Amendment when he and Warners couldn't agree on which part he should play.

The details on the 28th Amendment scenario reveal a good deal about what Cruise is looking for in roles. Cruise played a doctor in Eyes Wide Shut, a U.S. Senator in Lions for Lambs, and a Nazi German World War II hero in Valkyrie (a role that I hear is quite moving). Cruise also earned raves in a cameo role in Tropic Thunder as a fat balding venal producer.

According to both Warners and director Phil Noyce, Cruise wanted to play the role of the president in 28th Amendment, a maverick third party independent candidate who gets elected to the highest office in the land only to discover that a cabal runs the country and he has no power. During a coup d'etat attempt, the president finds an ally in a burned out special forces operative who helps him to overcome the shadow government and set things right.

The studio, however, wanted Cruise to play the operative, which the star deemed too close to Mission Impossible. "He'd totally score," says one Warners exec. "It's a fantastic heroic character." But Cruise was more interested in the president. The studio didn't want Cruise to play the commander-in-chief because he carried too much baggage. "It was so front and center, a lightning rod kind of part," says the exec. "Don't set yourself up to be kicked in the nuts."

"I truly thought Tom would be great in the role of an outsider elected to the highest office," says Noyce. "The studio was always more than happy with Cruise for the original role, but wanted to explore further possibilities for the president, including Denzel. For them, it was about finding the right balance between the two leads, in a very high budget political thriller."

WB approached Washington to play the president. But he balked, at a time when Obama is running for that office. Meanwhile, Angelina Jolie signed on to Edwin A. Salt at Sony for a proposed February shoot. With 28th Amendment stalled at WB, Noyce went over to Salt. "A study of the American psyche at the end of the Bush era, 28th Amendment is the kind of movie that might not have found a studio backer at any time since the Nixon White House," says Noyce, who'd happily rejoin the project if he could put it together again, with Cruise, or someone else.

Cruise is also considering taking on a DC comic book character in Sleeper, possibly with director Sam Raimi. He's an operative with alien powers who is impervious to pain.

I had lunch last week with a former Paramount marketing honcho who always found Cruise to be pleasant and professional, even when the studio would have preferred that he back off a tad during the War of the Worlds PR debacle. Cruise first changed PR direction during The Last Samurai, parting ways with PMK press agent Pat Kingsley, because she told him that he should not openly espouse his Scientology beliefs. He insisted on doing just the opposite.

Cruise finally paid dearly for that heartfelt decision. Viacom head Sumner Redstone tossed him off the lot after a disappointing return on the last Mission Impossible installment. And now after Lions for Lambs, the biggest flop of his career, Cruise can't get Warners to let him play the president. Wow.

The Screen Actors Guild nominees took some surprising directions. (Here's Variety's story.) They reflect a few things about SAG, and may not predict Academy voting behavior. The two groups often share noms but also go their separate ways.

Actors LOVE Sean Penn, whose Into the Wild grabbed four noms. Hal Holbrook is still the most likely Oscar nom for this film, but Emile Hirsch and Catherine Keener get a leg up. Remember, actors adore Penn, but the rest of the Academy voters may not.

I hope the attention SAG voters gave Lars and the Real Girl's Ryan Gosling, Eastern Promises' Viggo Mortensen and A Mighty Heart's Angelina Jolie will inspire Academy voters to watch those three films.

Actors love Cate Blanchett. Like the Golden Globes, she grabbed two noms, for best actress for Elizabeth: The Golden Age and supporting actress for I'm Not There. I doubt the Oscar actors will go for Elizabeth.

SAG voters are somewhat more mainstream than the Academy actors. They steered away from such late-breaking high-brow Academy contenders as Sweeney Todd and Atonement. No Johnny Depp, James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saorise Ronan. They went for There Will be Blood's Daniel Day Lewis, but not Paul Dano. Michael Clayton's George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson continue to gain traction for Academy Oscar slots. SAG voters skipped such foreign-language fare as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Kite Runner, but came through for Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, which was a hit here. It makes sense that they embraced the great ensemble acting in the hugely entertaining 3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster, Hairspray and No Country for Old Men (both Tommy Lee Jones and Javier Bardem got supporting actor noms).

American Gangster won a best ensemble nod and Ruby Dee is a supporting actress nominee, but Denzel Washington got nothing, not for American Gangster nor The Great Debaters, which some SAG voters may not have had a chance to see. While American Gangster seems to be losing momentum (it has fallen out of the LAT's Buzzmeter poll's top five for best picture) my sense is that many Academy voters like it a lot. Charlie Wilson's War, on the other hand, which opens this weekend, hasn't got a pulse.

The full SAG nominations list is on the jump:

Here's Variety's review of Denzel Washington's late Oscar-race entry The Great Debaters.

Universal's Ron Meyer, Marc Shmuger, David Linde and producer Brian Grazer threw an Oscar-season party at Ago Saturday night to honor American Gangster director Ridley Scott. It's a measure of the Brit's clout that he was surrounded by actors. Paying tribute were Gangster star Denzel Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio (talking to Jeremy Piven), Armand Assante and Edward James Olmos, who starred in the recently reissued Blade Runner.

Scott shot commercials in Manhattan back in the 70s, when American Gangster was set, and took pictures in Harlem, which he consulted when prepping the movie. Screenwriter Steve Zaillian, who collaborated with Scott on Black Hawk Down and Hannibal, sent his draft of American Gangster to the director, who managed to talk Washington into coming back on board after a later script fell dormant. Zaillian is trying to adjust to not writing, he said. Strike talk filled the party, with most folks assuming that the forthcoming DGA talks were most likely to yield some results.

With seven nominations, Joe Wright's Atonement led the field of Golden Globe nominations Thursday morning. It was a good day for Denzel Washington, who stars in two films out of seven in the motion picture drama category: American Gangster, in which he stars as a Harlem kingpin, and The Great Debaters, a heart-tugging period drama about an upstart debate team at a black college who take on Harvard, which he also directed. He was also nominated for best actor for American Gangster.

The 80 or so Hollywood Foreign press voters wound up with three ties for fifth place, they say; hence the seven drama slots.

Michael Clayton earned five noms, including George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson. Cate Blanchett landed two noms, for dramatic actress in Elizabeth: The Golden Age and for her supporting role as one of six Bob Dylans in I'm Not There. And Philip Seymour Hoffman won two comedy side noms, as best actor in The Savages and supporting actor in Charlie Wilson's War.

While considered a bellwether for the Oscars, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association generously breaks its best picture and actor candidates into two categories: drama and musical/comedy, while the Motion Picture Academy does not. Thus, on January 22 the Academy may not find room to reward all the musical/comedy Globe entries: Across the Universe, Hairspray, Juno, Sweeney Todd and Charlie Wilson's War, which landed five noms.

The director category reveals the strongest five Globe candidates: Sweeney Todd, No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, American Gangster and Atonement. I would not be surprised if those five also wound up as Oscar's best on January 22. While its youthful director Jason Reitman did not land a director Globe mention, Juno, which got nods for comedy, actress (Ellen Page) and screenplay (Diablo Cody) is gaining momentum in the Oscar race.

There's no question that Hairspray got a significant boost from the Globe nominations, especially John Travolta in the supporting actor category, who had been overlooked by critics' groups. Also getting much-needed recognition was Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Among the Globe surprises that may not be mirrored on the Oscar side of the ledger:

David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises and star Viggo Mortenson earned drama nods.

Angelina Jolie landed a dramatic actress nom for A Mighty Heart.

Jodie Foster was recognized for her role as a Manhattan vigilante in The Brave One.

On the musical/comedy side:

Hairspray's Nikki Blonsky and Sweeney Todd's Helena Bonham Carter landed noms.

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts won noms for Charlie Wilson's War.

John C. Reilly landed a nod for the musical comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Ryan Gosling got a much-needed boost for the indie flick Lars and the Real Girl.

Of the musical/comedy actor nods, the likeliest one to score with the Academy voters is Sweeney Todd's Johnny Depp.

Because the Globes have less stringent criteria for inclusion in its foreign film category, several films that are not eligible for the Oscars made the cut: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Lust, Caution and The Kite Runner. Nominees 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Romania) and Persepolis (France) are considered strong contenders in the foreign Oscar race.

While many would-be awards-season contenders are crying in their beer today, all is not lost. It is possible to forge ahead without Globe noms, as Half-Nelson star Gosling did last year.

The full list of movie nominations is on the jump.

While I admire Kris Tapley's attempt to make some sense out of the blizzard of Oscar predictions out there, I remain convinced that until the prognosticators see Charlie Wilson's War and Sweeney Todd, the two films that many of us got invited to see Monday, none of these lists make much sense. Richard Corliss in Time suggests that "audiences will have a great time watching" Charlie Wilson's War, which seemed to play for Oprah Winfrey's Chicago audience. Oprah raved about Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance, as guests Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts (who tried to get out of shooting a bikini scene while four weeks pregnant) nodded politely. My hunch is that Hoffman won't get nommed for best actor for The Savages or Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but will get a supporting nom for Charlie Wilson's War.

Clearly, the non-pro fans on Movie City News and Awards Daily are voting with their youthful hearts and not thinking much about the Academy's tastes. Into the Wild is a popular movie that has a chance at some noms, especially for Hal Holbrook, but because of the way the movie was written, shot and performed, the different branches of the Academy may not take it seriously enough. It's shot doc-style on location, it looks like it was performed on the fly. I suspect the editor has a better shot than Penn as director or writer, Emile Hirsch as actor, or the cinematography. The Academy admires fakery, sets, costumes and literature. As an organic whole, Into the Wild is an entertaining, thought-provoking emotionally rewarding movie. But it's a long-shot as an Academy contender.

David Fincher's Zodiac is another movie that isn't gaining Oscar momentum. It was well-reviewed last summer March, and many critics will include it on their ten-bests. But its time has come and gone. It was an expensive big-budget studio failure. It's indulgently long, and Fincher's insistence on verisimilitude meant not giving viewers a satisfying narrative arc. The movie has its merits--hell, it will be on my ten best list---but an Oscar contender needs to have enthusiastic supporters, few detractors and a passionate push behind it. It needs confidence. Zodiac has too many deficits. Paramount is already gearing up to make a major Oscar push for Fincher's next, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as star-crossed lovers twisted by time, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

I got into a heated debate with someone in the office yesterday about Enchanted, the animated/live action comedy that brilliantly spoofs Disney's classic animated musicals. This movie is just what the doctor ordered: entertaining, witty, engaging, delirious fun. It's a three-quadrant accessible family musical that will grow and grow and grow through the holidays. Whatever it opens at Wednesday, it will keep building: the movie could wind up one of the year's biggest grossers. Men will initially resist the chick flick's charms, but they should eventually get pulled into Enchanted's vortex. Amy Adams gives a full-blown star breakout performance (on Oprah, a clip of her from Charlie Wilson's War caused both Hanks and Roberts to chime, "Amy Adams," naming her the It Girl of the moment). Adams could land, Julie Andrews-style, a nomination for best actress. (Why Disney isn't thumping the movie harder, I don't know. Most of us media folks didn't see it until last week. UPDATE: And yet again, the Academy screening committee in its wisdom has scheduled Alvin and the Chipmunks during its prime December viewing season, and not Enchanted.)

But Enchanted is not your standard-issue Oscar movie. Director Kevin Lima (Tarzan, 102 Dalmations) has made a successful crossover from animation. Bill Kelly's script is witty and smart and should land a nomination. But will it? Let's be honest about the Academy. They are SNOBS! They are high-minded, nose-in-the-air, classists. The more literary, historic, and pretentious the better. (EW's Mark Harris explains the Oscar predicting game.) The last animated film to make it to Best Picture was Beauty and the Beast (for which Lima did character animation), before there was an animation category. Sure, I'd also like to see the best-reviewed movie of the year, Pixar's fabulous Ratatouille, score screenplay, director and picture. It deserves it. But it won't necessarily happen.

The trick with Oscar predicting is feeling where the momentum is going and looking into the future, down the line. The best prognosticators have seen the movies, one. And two, they're not rooting for their favorites. They're staying ruthlessly objective. Do I have some pics I'm rooting for? Sure. But I have to take that into account and remain clear-eyed. The year I let emotions get the better of me and predicted that Beauty and the Beast would win, I was so wrong.

As for the Academy docs short list of 15, they are the the best-known and best-reviewed: the full list is on the jump.

American Gangster, despite its length and R-rating, should dominate the weekend boxoffice. (Variety's Pam McClintock agrees. As does Fantasy Moguls.)

The strength of the movie is that it's based on real people. The script was written organically, Oscar-winning screenwriter Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List) told my UCLA class (who adored the film). He interviewed Harlem kingpin Frank Lucas (who was a tad scary) and cop-turned-defense lawyer Richie Roberts at great length. Zaillian took real people and figured out how to interweave their lives and stories. It took him a very long time to do this. It was a painful process. (Check out this interview in Script Magazine.)

But the results speak for themselves (the movie scored an excellent 81% on rottentomatoes.com). As Ken Turan says in his LAT review, the movie is character-based. It's about these two men, living parallel lives. The charismatic, sociopathic criminal is in some ways a well-balanced family man who adores his mother and wife. The ruthlessly honest cop has a disfunctional family life; his wife leaves him and he realizes that he is in no position to raise his son. And finally, the cop and the criminal respect and like each other more than a lot of other people in their lives.

As directed by Ridley Scott, the movie doesn't have the fake patina of so many studio big-budget pictures. He shot the $100-million film in real neighborhoods with multiple cameras, on the fly. Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe spent time with their real-life characters too. The movie feels authentic--even if Crowe is a tad out of his element as a New Jersey Jewish cop.

This picture will score big with urban audiences, just as Scarface did. It's a gangster classic.

Here's this weekend's Fandango Five Ticket Sales (as of 11/02/07 9:00 a.m. PT):

Movie Fandango User Rating % Fandango Sales

American Gangster “Must Go” 35%

Bee Movie “Go” 20%

Saw IV “Go” 14%

30 Days of Night “Go” 4%

Dan in Real Life “Go” 3%

Fandango Weekly Poll (as of 11/02/07 9:00 a.m. PT)

Saw IV is now playing. Of the following horror franchises, which is your favorite?

Saw 38%

Halloween 29%

A Nightmare on Elm Street 23%

Friday the 13th 10%

While he finds much to admire, Variety's Todd McCarthy has some issues with Ridley Scott's sprawling Harlem gangster epic American Gangster. While I grant that in some ways Russell Crowe is miscast as an honest Jewish cop from New Jersey, he runs with the role anyway. You need a star of some heft to stand up to the powerful Denzel Washington as a real-life Harlem drug lord.

The movie is hugely entertaining, and should score handily at the boxoffice, no matter its length, as well as with Oscar voters. It could be this year's The Departed. And Washington is a shoo-in for a best actor nod. I am assuming that most critics are not going to be as tough on American Gangster as McCarthy. If they are, that could hurt American Gangster's Oscar longevity. UPDATE: Here's Screen International.

Based on American Gangster's stellar advance tracking with all audiences (well ahead of The Departed, thanks to the urban demo), the Ridley Scott movie should be a big hit when it opens November 2; it could go all the way to the Oscars. But did the movie have to cost so much?

Claudia Eller's LAT story doesn't make clear that Brian Grazer, the 500-pound producer gorilla on the Universal lot, was able to push the movie through with a $100-million price tag--even after the studio had already written off a $30-million loss --in the wake of Stacey Snider's defection to DreamWorks in February 2006.

Grazer cannily took advantage of Universal's need to send a message of strength and viability; brand-new co-chairmen Marc Shmuger and David Linde went ahead with the deluxe deal. If Snider had not left, she would likely have kept the budget down. The key players got paid full price, with rich back ends. Denzel Washington had already gotten paid his upfront guarantee pay-or-play, so he signed on just for his gross. (He also got paid half his $20-million fee on Inside Man.) This way even when American Gangster makes money, so do gross participants Washington, Scott, Grazer and Russell Crowe. That adds up to a huge piece of the final gross going out the door--in all likelihood, some 37.5 25% of the gross. ($37.5 was Universal's all-time high, on Grinch.) The studios are all trying to not go over that 25%, which is still a hideous percentage.

UPDATE: Studio insiders argue that they believed that the movie demanded an epic scale, so they returned to writer Steve Zaillian's original vision. They negotiated overage protection with Grazer and Scott. The gross package was pulled back to 25% from near 60% if everyone had gotten their full cut. American Gangster was shot fast and tight with multiple cameras on real locations, and cost about half of what Michael Mann's Miami Vice cost. And the music budget was rigorously monitored, coming in at just $2 million.

Here's Defamer's take. And the trailer: