LOS ANGELES- Leaders of Hollywood's writers union were set to confirm plans for a strike here Friday, in a move which is expected to plunge the US television and movie industry into its biggest crisis in decades.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) negotiators told members late Thursday that they would recommend industrial action to the body's executive, which is expected to ratify the call when they meet at 1700 GMT.
Reports said guild members would be notified of the decision later Friday, with the strike set to begin on Monday.
Industry analysts are predicting a lengthy shutdown lasting several months, with one estimate of potential losses set at more than one billion dollars.
Entertainment industry bible Daily Variety greeted news of the expected shutdown on its front page Friday with the headline: "Apocalypse Now."
The report also speculated that a strike may trigger off a chain reaction amongst other industry unions.
The strike calls come after last-ditch talks between the (WGA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) broke down on Wednesday, hours before an existing agreement expired.
Writers are demanding a greater share of residual profits from television series sold on DVDs as well as improved pay schedules for programs shown on the Internet, cellular phones, and other new media outlets.
Producers rejected the demands as unworkable and too expensive, setting the stage for the first major strike by Hollywood writers in nearly 20 years.
"Everybody knows what a DVD costs and a writer gets four to five cents for a DVD sale," screenwriter Bryce Zabel said Thursday. "We've asked for eight. And they've said that's outrageous."
The effects of a strike will be felt most severely by television, with late-night chat shows hosted by David Letterman and Jay Leno -- which both lean heavily on teams of union writers -- expected to go off the air.
Other nightly shows such as Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert's "The Colbert Report" are also tipped to shut down, according to reports.
Another US television institution, comedy show "Saturday Night Live" would also be sent reeling.
"Boom -- our show just shuts down," Amy Poehler, a member of the cast, told Daily Variety this week. "It's just done. There is no backlog of scripts."
The immediate impact on major Hollywood studios is expected to be limited as several have already drawn up contingency plans, according to industry reports.
Most of the major studios are reported to have built up portfolios of five films, with scripts and plots strong enough to overcome the possible lack of a union writer on board to execute re-writes.
Actor Tom Cruise said at the US premiere of his political drama "Lions for Lambs" on Thursday that he hoped for a swift end to the dispute.
"I just want to get it all resolved so we can get on with what we all want to do, which is make movies," Cruise told a KTLA television reporter.
Matthew Michael Carnahan, who wrote the screenplay for Cruise's film, admitted to mixed feelings about being told by his union to stop writing.
"Just from a very selfish perspective it's hard for me to be told that I can't do this thing that I really love," Carnahan said.
"I'll go with it, because nobody forced me to become a member of the guild. But it's hard."
A WGA strike in 1988 lasted 22 weeks and cost the industry an estimated 500 million dollars.
rcw/ksh
11/02/2007 15:21 GMT