Pact Mentality

After war comes not peace but...vacation. Now that the two actors' unions have averted a strike by forging a tentative three-year deal with the studios, you'd think Hollywood would be buzzing with stalled productions, right? Wrong. Aside from projects that had planned to shoot around a walkout, like the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix 2 and 3, the film industry is in Lull-Lull Land. ''It's dead,'' says Matt Kimbrough, a Screen Actors Guild negotiator who played Julia Roberts' bartender in Erin Brockovich. ''We were joking there's nothing to go on strike against since there's no work.'' No joke: Most studios are idling after all the films greenlit in the prestrike hysteria. Universal has no new filming scheduled until an untitled Eminem flick starts in September -- and that, for some studios, will be early. ''Things won't pick up to the level we're used to until next year,'' predicts one studio exec. ''We've got a lot of films.'' While many doubt the quality of this rushed filmmaking, one industryite is encouraged: ''In some cases, the frenzy means the product may be more what came out of the writer and director's heads.'' Hmm. Maybe SAG should consider striking every year.