After much haggling and horse-trading in an attempt to salvage some of the celebratory PR value of the when-worlds-collide event, Variety is reporting that the Golden Globe ceremony for next Sunday, January 13, is no more. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s 65th annual awards show has been downscaled from a gala dinner ceremony and live
telecast to an hour-long news conference at the Beverly Hilton. Huzzah!

This outcome shouldn’t be that shocking — this is one of the few opportunities the writers have to actually evidence that they collectively have a pair. Back-channel attempts were made to reach an accord that would allow the event to proceed in some fashion without the oh-so-distasteful pictures (and, more importantly, lack of stars) that picketing outside would produce, but now that the studio after-parties have started being canceled, one by one, it’s all over but the hand-wringing and recrimination.

The real question, moving forward, is how this will affect the box office fortunes of movies like Atonement, which led the honored films with seven nominations — including best acting honors for Keira Knightley and James McAvoy — or, for that matter, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s California oil-boom epic There Will Be Blood, which many mainstream audiences still haven’t yet glimpsed. (Hey, not to mention special events like the Globe spin-off screening series at the Aero and Egyptian theaters, for which Marc Forster had already bowed out, given that he’s lensing the 22nd Bond picture.) It’s too bad that caterers will take a seasonal hit — I feel bad for them, at least.