Sure, they (Hollywood) would be happy if SOPA passed unaltered, but that's always the tactic: propose a door-in-the-face bill, shift the Overton window a bit, pass a foot-in-the-door law. It happens over and over.
Example: Do you think they could have passed a 40 year copyright extension in the 1970s? Instead, they passed two ~20 year extensions, one in 1976, one in 1998.
Example 2: SOPA and PIPA would have been unimaginable in 1998. Instead, they got the DMCA, which was merely unacceptable. Now, they push SOPA and PIPA hard, expecting to pass some watered-down version, and driving web site owners to extol the DMCA they vociferously opposed in 1998.
Then when the legislation was produced a support-base had already been formed. They expected a very public fight and prepared for it.
In this case they were very quiet. The first thing I heard at all in the normal media was on the radio driving to work this morning. The news guy on the Boston station mentioned Wikipedia's blackout tomorrow and mentioned SOPA as the reason. The who bit was about 3 sentences. As I said, I'm not privy to insider strategy, but it was definitely a different tack.
I don't think that was their tactic. I believe they intended to get the bills passed pretty much the way they wrote them (with, of course, the canonical juggling that goes on in these things). "Screaming from the sideline" was, in fact, effective. I'm just not comfortable using it as a long-term strategy.
We do need strong organizations in support of net freedom and neutrality. I would very much favor an organization whose only focus was on the 'net, and didn't also try to be anti-software-copyright/anti-software-patent or take on some other personality as well. It's easy to dilute your support when you try to take on too many causes that most folks don't really understand. Thost that may be inclined to give to one cause may shy away from a group that supports several.