What happens when Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage combine their operations? Will we still get a ‘Babel’ or ‘There Will be Blood’? I’m not sure. They’re combining marketing, distribution and physical production. Vantage will still use their own creative development and acquisition team. It will take away a part of the unique stamp, that’s for sure. It’s purely a choice of money. Just like Time Warner ditched Picturehouse and Warner Independent last month.

Of course Warner is spinning this into something like the ‘best of both worlds.’ They say it’s “to leverage the strengths and resources of a combined talent base, while minimizing redundancies and optimizing efficiencies.” But it will also save them several million in expenses. The reason studios are shutting down independent units is because of rising budgets, marketing costs and the crowded market. It’s probably just a cycle. In a couple of years they’ll just as easily start new ones.

After a surprising box office success, ‘Juno’ is generating some heat in the DVD stores too. Getting in at the top spot, it beat last week’s ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ in the sales department. Alvin slipped to number three, with ‘Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem’ coming in second.

But the pregnant girl didn’t stop there. ‘There will be Blood,’ which came in first last week, lost its top stop to ‘Juno’ too. ‘There will be Blood’ went on to make more in rentals than it did at the box office. It made the third place with $15.6 million in rentals in two weeks, followed by ‘Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem’ with $7.7 million. ‘Juno’ managed to top that, with just $8.4 million.

The agency shakeup is far from over. After Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller and Chris Rock respectively went to CAA, Endeavor and ICM, two more ‘big guys’ are getting ready to switch over. Nikki Finke was told Paul Thomas Anderson (’There Will be Blood’) “just wanted to move on. It wasn’t any one thing. He wants a change of scenery. It’s all very amicable.”

He is now reportedly going to the William Morris Agency, while John C Reilly is going to CAA.

It’s not like these people usually don’t swap agencies like cars, but the last few weeks has surprised everyone with so many major stars leaving or switching. Other than the ones mentioned above, Ashton Kutcher, Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Connelly and director Ed Solomon have jumped ship.

Looking at three of the biggest agencies in town, Endeavor was probably the biggest winner. CAA is not expected to gain nor lose. And UTA has been said to be the loser of this little spectacle.