Lawrence.com

With less than two days left in the Hollywood writers contract, negotiators resumed talks Monday, hoping to avert a walkout that would halt TV and movie production.

Representatives of the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers met throughout the weekend, but ended talks Sunday without bridging a $100 million gap between their respective demands.

With both sides participating in a news blackout, it was unclear whether they had made any progress over the weekend or when talks started up again Monday morning. The current contract expires at midnight Tuesday, and if talks break off, a strike authorization vote and a walkout could take place within a few days.

The real cliffhanger for audiences is whether a strike will keep their favorite comedies and dramas off the air in the fall.

If the writers walk out, the first victims would be daily soap operas and late-night variety shows, followed by sitcoms and hour-long dramas if a strike drags on.

"It might be the winter season before the public starts seeing a lot of new shows," said Doug Lieblein, a writer-producer on the CBS comedy "Yes, Dear."

Studio officials and WGA leaders have said they are willing to compromise � but only a little.

"The notion, which has been offered by some, that the gap between us can possibly be bridged by simply meeting in the middle is ill-informed and, unfortunately, a nonstarter for us," DreamWorks SKG studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg said.

Walkout fears have strained Hollywood for months, with studios preparing for a dead zone in production by rushing film shoots and trying, mostly in vain, to stockpile scripts.

Not only is Tuesday the last day of the writers union's contract for its 11,000 members, but agreements for the two performers' unions � the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists � expire on June 30.

Back-to-back strikes could devastate the entertainment industry by delaying the TV season and new movie releases even more.

TV networks say they may rely on more reality programming to make up for a lack of scripted shows, but writers dismiss that plan.

"Imagine if the networks' Monday lineup was essentially 'Survivor,' 'Millionaire' and 'Weakest Link,' and then on Tuesday, 'Survivor,' 'Millionaire' and 'Weakest Link,"' Lieblein said. "The networks may pretend that won't kill them, but it will."

Movie studios may turn to releasing more foreign films or independently made pictures to compensate for the shortage of Hollywood-produced fare.

Talks between the writers and the alliance began Jan. 22, but halted March 1 amid disagreements over how much residual pay studios owe writers when films or TV shows are broadcast overseas or rerun domestically. The writers also want more money from videocassettes and DVDs.

Negotiations resumed April 17 and continued Sunday.

John Wells, president of the western unit of the writers' union and a writer-producer of "ER" and "The West Wing," has said Hollywood writers earned a total of about $1.2 billion in 2000 and are demanding a $99.7 million increase over three years.

The producers' alliance, however, has said that raising the minimum pay would also raise the scale for top writers, amounting to an actual increase of $227.4 million over three years. Studios say they can't afford that in today's burgeoning entertainment world.

"Costs keep going up but the ability to achieve the kind of audience levels necessary to cover those costs seemingly is going down because of all the competition," said Walt Disney Co. president Robert Iger.