It’s a start! WGA has struck a deal with Tom Cruise’s production company, United Artists Films, an off shoot of MGM (which has made no deal) in hopes of making the big guys crumble. They took the Golden Globes and now they’re slowly getting at the studios.

The deal announced today was the first reached with big-screen producers by the Writers Guild of America, which has been on strike since Nov. 5. Terms were not disclosed.

“United Artists has lived up to its name. UA and the Writers Guild came together and negotiated seriously. The end result is that we have a deal that will put people back to work,” said Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West.

A news release from the guild said the agreement addresses key issues of writers, who walked off the job over their cut of potential profits from programming on the Internet and other new media.

It became obvious weeks ago that the head of the studios were not willing to talk, so there was no way to win the war. So the WGA is going to individual companies and starting to get smaller sectors of these mega-companies to make deals with them. I believe they are doing this hoping that if they win enough smaller companies, the big ones will be forced to follow.

United Artists has been around since the silent movie era, yet the only movie Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner have produced so far has been “Lambs for Lions” which did not do well despite the poignant topic, A-list cast, and mass marketing. So both sides have something to gain by making this deal, hopefully it will lead to others following in suit and the end of the strike.

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