Twilight Freaks and Star Trek Geeks, Handcuffs and Honchos

Thursday’s protest was part of the WGA’s ongoing campaign of rallies, briefings and a nationwide tour to bring attention to what the guild claims are “the substandard industry practices” of giant unscripted programmer FremantleMedia. The WGA’s so-called American Idol Truth Tour shadowed AI auditions this past summer in several major U.S. Cities — including San Francisco, New York, Phoenix and San Juan, Puerto Rico — to demand that FremantleMedia provide its writers and other workers with industry-standard pay and benefits. But yesterday was the first time American Idol Truth Tour participants had been arrested.

“We will continue to exercise our First Amendment rights despite the heavy-handed treatment we received,” said the WGAW’s Hermanson. “The public has a right to know that the top-rated show on television does not provide their writers with basic necessities like health care.”

Whither Walden Media

Geez, what took so long for him to leave? After all, CEO Cary Granat had been marginalized at Walden Media for almost the entire year by David Weil, the CEO of parent company Anschutz Film Group.

“They had gotten along and then things started to go awry. The two men went in opposite directions,” a source tells me. Granat, whose name has been synonymous with Walden Media since 2001, should be out the door no later than the end of the year.

He’d been hanging on by a thread since last January when Walden Media let go many staffers. Granat was in charge of the disappointing Narnia 2, but now still couldn’t get a greenlight for Narnia 3. Which may well explain why “he feels like he did when he left Dimension: I’m done,” an insider told me. Sticking around is Granat’s longtime pal Michael Bostick, the film producer announced as the new co-CEO of Walden Media last March, whom Granat had actively recruited and who reports to Weil.

The real question now: What is the future of Walden Media? Is yet another buyer going down the tubes in this lousy economy? Hard to imagine considering Anschutz still has dough. Until recently, all of Walden Media’s movies had been shared with Disney, Fox or Summit. But in October, Fox Walden became part of Fox, and about a dozen Fox Walden staffers were laid off as part of a restructuring. Pointedly, Granat’s name was nowhere on that press release — only Weil’s.