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Operatives on the Paramount lot have told us that the long-anticipated layoffs resulting from Brad Grey's early Christmas gift to himself, the DreamWorks acquisition, have finally begun. Early reports have Paramount's development and marketing departments getting swept away in favor of the DW staff, but from what we've heard, workers across the lot are so nervous about the cuts that Grey might as well be wandering around in a Grim Reaper outfit, randomly tapping the soon-to-be pinkslipped on the shoulder and yelling "Boo!" Yesterday's rumors were that 70-100 people might be going, but today's whispered number is 170. Developing...

UPDATE: Stuff we've heard since the initial report:

· The marketing department has been hit hard, and an operative expects it to get nasty in distribution.

· Everyone's wondering about the fate of Grey's first big Paramount hire, Gail Berman. She apparently emerged from a long closed-door meeting and sent her assistants home for the day, either a sign of the world's greatest boss or the world's greatest ex-boss. [Update to update: We hear the assistants are still at battle stations. Faulty intel or dedicated assistants? What's going on over there?] Currently on the Gail Berman Rumored Replacement Tote Board are DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg and Walter Parkes, or Universal's Stacey Snider (a rumor everyone's been hearing for at least a week).

· Dark humor from the pinkslip-strewn battlefield: A production has been discharging firearms on one of the sets, prompting those in nearby offices to joke about how they've just discovered a much easier way to carry out the layoffs. It's all funny until they start strapping bodies to backs of the white trucks.