Report: Secret WMA Star Chamber Preps For Merger

We all know Sharon Waxman's weakness for covering top-secret Hollywood powwows, especially the ones that didn't necessarily happen. But this one seems a little more realistic: Waxman reported late Tuesday that the board at William Morris convened for high-level discussions about its increasingly likely merger with Endeavor.

The news here isn't necessarily the meeting itself, which Waxman notes occurred Tuesday afternoon in a "secret location" -- not unlike last fall's wholly mythologized power dinner during which Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep and other A-listers were said to have given their blessing to a SAG strike authorization. Rather, Waxman draws the projected annual revenues of the WMA/Endeavor hydra "about even" with those of the CAA, topping of around $300 million.

CAA insiders beg to differ, meanwhile, predicting a post-merger purge of up to 100 agents and the opportunity to pluck at will from the WMA/Endeavor talent ranks. "They've got motion pictures in one building, TV in another," Waxman quotes one Death Star operative as saying. "If you're a writer client, you have to walk down the street to see your movie guy? What kind of synergy is that?" In their own comments to The Wrap, UTA moles seemed to agree, eyeing their own chance to bulk up on scribes and other disaffected clientele. Or host their own surreptitious meeting about how to best liquidate office furniture, whichever comes first.

· William Morris Board Meets, Shoots, Leaves [TheWrap]