Thank You For Smoking's Aaron Eckhart re-enacts the deal-making process between Paramount Classics and producer David Sacks (Photo: Room 9 Productions)

Another day, another round of wild speculation from Toronto surrounding Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking. In case you missed it, Lloyd Grove Eugene Hernandez yesterday broke the story that Smoking's producer, David Sacks, may have landed a handshake distribution deal with Paramount Classics before signing a more conventional signed contract with Fox Searchlight.

All hell has since broken loose around the film, with Hernandez and other New York film fixtures Sharon Waxman and Ian Mohr chiming in today with the latest--the essence of which The Reeler conveniently (and accurately, with any luck) provides herewith:

IW's Hernandez leads the party-circuit news infantry into battle with some of the best dirt so far, including Paramount Classics co-president Ruth Vitale's strongest insistence yet that her company has a deal:

She faulted the inexperience of the producer and added, "He needs to come to his senses." Asked how or when the situation would be resolved, Vitale singled out the film's rep, Cassian Elwes at William Morris Independent, saying, "We are waiting for William Morris to do the right thing."

Speaking of agents, Variety's Mohr mentions that William Morris is working behind the scenes to forge a partnership similar to the one the studios shared for their hit Napoleon Dynamite. Odds are unfavorable, however, considering the perceptions of skulduggery at hand. For his part, Sacks released a statement defending his deal with Fox and laying down the law--literally--for all the haters:

"The fact that multiple studios bid intensely for this movie is a testament to what Jason has achieved. However, I want to be clear that only one studio, Fox Searchlight, bought the movie. Although we had negotiations with Paramount Classics, no deal was ever concluded.

"Although this is my first movie," Sacks went on to add, "I was represented by highly experienced industry professionals. I am also a lawyer and have run a large public company. We know when we have closed a deal, and when we haven't."

David, dude, come on. "Trust me--I'm a lawyer" has not worked since like 45 B.C., and even earlier than that in Hollywood.

Anyway, Mohr also has a dynamic sampling of mini-major insiders defining their own standards for making festival deals after seven martinis and the "lethal chocolate ganache" that sunk Lowdown's Lloyd Grove at Toronto's Shopgirl premiere. The jury remains split, for the most part, but one rep had a revealing comment discouraging Paramount from chasing legal recourse: "I would not want to be associated with a film if a filmmaker wanted to be working with someone else," he said. "I would just move on." (A point persuasively reinforced today by Cinematical's Karina Longworth, who reminds readers: "I think any exec who remembers the Sundance/Happy, Texas fiasco would be wary of participating in such a sales scuffle for fear of falsely inflating the property at hand. How will anyone be able to rationalize their legal bills if this film--a comedy from an unproven director with few-if-any awards prospects--flops anywhere nearly as badly as Happy did?")

And of course there is The Times' Waxman with her Rolodex and her altimeter, surveying the wreckage from 30,000 feet:

The apparent impasse reflected several shifting realities of the independent film world. One is the flourishing of art-house divisions at major Hollywood studios, including NBC Universal's Focus Features, News Corporation's Fox Searchlight, Viacom's Paramount Classics and several others, which is fueling bidding wars for the limited number of good, independently financed movies.

The other is the arrival of a new crop of self-financing producers, former dot-com multimillionaires and trust-fund tycoons, whose movies are starting to enter the film marketplace. Mr. Sacks is a founder of PayPal, the Internet payment company, who sold his interest to eBay and became a Hollywood movie producer a couple of years ago.

However, Waxman does offer a typically classic quote from St. Harvey Weinstein ("I'm not in this one. I'll leave it to the younger guys.") and a telling delineation of Vitale's politics ("We look forward to working with Jason Reitman because he is extraordinarily talented," accedes to "I can only think that because of [Sacks'] naivete and inexperience that he would do this."). Waxman's timeline is intriguing but old news in the wake of Hernandez's gumshoe stylings on Monday.

Touching on Waxman's studio commentary, however, Hernandez winds down today's report with a revealing allusion:

In the case of Paramount Classics, the situation enhanced persistent speculation about the stability of the division that has circulated since the recent arrival of new top brass at Paramount Studios. [Vitale], in the conversation with indieWIRE late Monday, emphasized that her studio bosses are supporting her in the matter, explaining that she is holding the film's reps accountable for their verbal agreement. She also cited numerous cases in which verbal agreements with sales reps were not 'papered' until much later, noting a long history of industry practices that include sketching out deals on cocktail napkins, she added, "That's how we do business."

Wait, Ruth--you mean that is how you used to do business.

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