About the only thing heating up faster than Palm Springs in July are William Morris-Endeavor merger rumors. After about two weeks of quiet, it was game on Thursday…or at least so many were saying.

By Thursday afternoon, rivals agents and the occasional studio exec were buzzing that they heard a deal was about to go down — while the agencies, meanwhile, knocked down the murmurs as so much speculation.

Of course, just a few personalities at these private shops are needed to ratify a deal (before it goes to their respective boards). Which means that even if it is about to go down, there aren't a whole lot of ways this could leak  (unless clients and agents start getting notified). More as news warrants.

CAA’s Kevin Iwashina, who was a member of the agency’s eight-person film financing team, has been released by the partners, according to sources. The agent, who has spent his entire career with CAA, was instrumental in packaging independent films and was a major player on the festival circuit. A CAA spokesman confirmed that Iwashina will be leaving the agency to pursue other opportunities but declined comment on the reason for his exit. (posted by Tatiana Siegel)

The office is buzzing with the defection of primo director’s agent Robert Newman from ICM to Endeavor. Here’s Borys Kit and Tatiana Siegel’s report. Newman leaves behind director’s agents Jeff Berg (ICM chairman), John Burnham and Doug McLaren. Some ICM insiders say that Newman’s departure was a result of ICM’s recent merger with the Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann agency, although Newman denies that, expressing support for new ICM co-president Chris Silbermann. Newman’s clients likely to go with him include Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo del Toro, Baz Luhrmann and Danny Boyle. Mostly, Newman said, he’s excited by the opportunities presented by becoming partner at Endeavor. “It’s the hardest decision I ever made in my life,” he said.

The NYT’s Sharon Waxman gets behind the scenes on troubled comedy star Jim Carrey’s breakup with his longtime UTA agent Nick Stevens (reported on 9/13 by TMZ and Deadline Hollywood), followed by Carrey’s signing with CAA last week (reported by THR). The minutiae of who did what to whom is wearying; the question is what does it really mean? The first star to command $20 million (for 1996’s Cable Guy), Carrey is now facing the music as studios are asking how much they’re really willing to bank on him. At long last the industry is retrenching from the disastrous inflation that Cable Guy caused among the top-ranked movie stars who demanded that they should get what Carrey was getting—and then some. Cheap comedies weren’t so cheap when major comedy stars were attached to them. And so on.

NYP on Laura Albert/JT Leroy’s true confession. THR’s new blog reelpop on MySpace’s too-good-to-be-true lonelygirl15.
LAT on same. VIDEO: A Change In My Life.

Press agent Stephen Huvane went ballistic, according to the NY Post over The Today Show’s handling of his client Jennifer Aniston’s supposed engagement to Vince Vaughn.

Word is that Stephen Huvane is furious because the NBC morning chatfest trumpeted Us Weekly’s “scoop” about Aniston and Vince Vaughn’s supposed engagement, and then had Ann Curry breathlessly pump editrix Janice Min for details. So Huvane is said to be yanking his roster of top stars from future “Today” appearances.

Sources say Huvane called “Today” executives and read them the riot act for not having checked with him before reporting that Vaughn proposed to Aniston on a private plane after a romantic weekend in Mexico. Huvane has branded the story a complete fabrication. He’s said to have told the “Today” suits he’s pulling his hottest clients – including Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Demi Moore and Kirsten Dunst – from the show indefinitely.

It’s also expected Huvane will hand his clients over to dreaded ABC competitor “Good Morning America.” His entire firm, powerful PMKHBH, may follow suit, which would mean a serious scarcity of stars on “Today.”

ICM finally makes a major agency acquisition.

ICM has sealed a deal to acquire Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann Agency, bringing the powerhouse talent agency together with a powerful literary-focused agency with a stellar roster of writer-producer and showrunner clients. The deal was finalized Thursday after roughly five months of under-the-radar negotiations between the two agencies.

Endeavor agency honcho Ari Emanuel (who inspires Jeremy Piven’s Entourage role) is one strange bird, reports the denizens of one Rhode Island vacation town.