Not since the infamous Rob Lowe video have tapes swept through the film industry.
But if the BBC documentary "Naked Hollywood" suggests a lot of skin, forget it. What you'll see are people talking about their jobs: talent agents, producers, lawyers and studio chiefs, a smattering of celebrities, even the studio projectionist who is under orders to keep 20th Century Fox Chairman Barry Diller's personal screening room cooled to 68 degrees.Producer Nicolas Kent, who has sent copies of tapes to many of the 100 or so people he interviewed for the series, said last week the reaction he's been getting is mostly from journalists sensing a story. He hasn't heard from Hollywood, though he knows people have seen it. In addition to his mailings, video tapes were sent to people in Los Angeles after the BBC series aired in Great Britain.
There have been reports of dinner parties being held with showings of the tapes - or portions - as dessert. "Everyone is trying to get their hands on them," said one producer who had seen three parts. "But I don't know why. It's a snore."
Yes, says Kent, some producers objected to how they were presented.
"But I'm mystified as to what it is some are objecting too," says Kent, who believes he's presented the industry as it is.
It hasn't made him many friends in Hollywood. Some people, who prefer to remain unidentified, say that many participants complain they didn't fully understand the kind of series it would be. "Certainly they didn't know the name was `Naked Hollywood,' " said one.
Says Marty Bauer, the pres-ident of United Talent Agency, "as a reviewer I'd give it a B-plus, but I wish it was more accurate. They cut the pieces to sensationalize the negative aspects of our business."
Bauer says one segment gives the impression that Bauer attempted to "steal director Michael Caton-Jones" from the Creative Artists Agency. "How could that be?" asked Bauer. "I just met him that day. I have a non-agression pact with CAA - meaning I don't steal clients - and if I was going to do it, I wouldn't do it on national TV."
Another figure in the series, entertainment attorney Peter Dekom, said, "I had no problem with my depiction. I liked the part about (Fox film chief) Joe Roth - he came across well. But they do take some cheap shots when they intercut scenes of animals grazing."
In Dekom's view, "Naked Hollywood" isn't the expose some believe. "Hollywood has been expose-ed so much, there's no way to expose Hollywood." -DAVID J. FOX
- Those "Prince of Tides" research screenings held a month or so ago that had everybody coming out all relieved with smiles over Barbra Streisand's second directorial project also had Columbia Pictures chairman Frank Price scurrying back to his calendar. How to reposition the better-than-expected "Prince of Tides"?
The film's original release date - September - was no longer a splashy enough platform for what could be Columbia's biggest film since "Boyz N The Hood." First, Price angled for October, then after much cajoling of the director-co-producer-co-author-co-star, Streisand was persuaded to let her film version of Pat Conroy's best-selling novel be the studio's Christmas movie (opening in Los Angeles and New York the week before Christmas and then nation-wide on Dec. 25) where it will go head to head with Steven Spielberg's "Hook" and Barry Levinson's "Bugsy."
So now Streisand has a few more weeks breathing room, which she is spending in the dubbing room. New screenings are planned for the first week of August before she locks the film and heads off for a brief vacation. In the fall, she will do a small but select bit of pre-opening publicity.
The only thing left to squabble over? Whether the director, who also has a new record album - a 30-year retrospective - coming out this fall from Sony (which not coincidently owns Columbia) will add a new song to the end of her film. Price wants one, Streisand apparently is less anxious to add her vocals to her already lengthy film credits. Meanwhile, "Vanity Fair" is left scrambling for a new September cover story. - HILARY DE VRIES
- With Hollywood now embracing African-American directors and black-themed movies, there's keen interest in projects about the Black Panthers. "It's obvious that there are not only great stories (in the Panther movement), but there's a perception that black subject matter has definite value, that black is green," says Suzanne de Passe, president of Gordy-De Passe Productions.
De Passe is shepherding one of at least five Black Panther-related projects now in development - and it's the only one to tell the story from a woman's point of view. She has bought the rights to the upcoming autobiography of her long-time friend Elaine Brown, who rose from a nightclub waitress to become a top Panther official and a near-miss candidate for the City Council in Oakland, Calif.
But other film projects will tell the Panther story through the eyes of fictional characters, not leaders like Bobby Seale and Huey Newton. Joel Silver's production company at Warner Bros. is working with Henry Hampton, executive producer of the acclaimed TV series "Eyes on the Prize," on a project about a young black man whose life changes when he joins the Panthers.
This story - like others in the works - will portray the controversial Panthers in a positive light. "We're trying to create a story that's emotional and powerful," says Matt Tabak, the company's vice president of development. "We look upon the movement as a very positive one, but one that was repressed by white society." Charles Burnett, who directed the critical favorite "To Sleep With Anger," is expected to direct and write that film.
Melvin Van Peebles, who came to fame for his provocative 1971 film "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," is also writing a Black Panther project - probably with his son, Mario, co-directing and starring. (The younger Van Peebles' work includes starring in and directing "New Jack City.")
Van Peebles, who knew some of the movement's leaders, said the fictional story he is currently writing will "look at the whole era," including characters from the Peace and Freedom Party and Students for a Democratic Society. "I want to dispel many of the myths (surrounding the Panthers)," Van Peebles adds. "They were not anti-white, they were pro-black." Van Peebles' film will be produced by Robert De Niro's production company, Tribeca, which is allied with Tri-Star Pictures.
Matty Rich, the young director who turned heads with his independently made "Straight Out of Brooklyn," says he also hopes to write and direct a Panther project, though it probably won't be his next project.
Columbia Pictures has hired Anna Hamilton Phelan ("Mask," "Gorillas in the Mist") to write a screenplay about prison revolutionary Johnny Spain, a protege of Panther field marshal George Jackson. "Chains," to be executive-produced by Oliver Stone, tells the story of Spain's troubled youth as the child of an interracial couple and his 21 years inside high-security prisons. -NINA J. EASTON
- The Terminator may be virtually indestructible but thanks to the creators behind "Naked Gun 21/2," he isn't spoof-proof. In a trailer that appeared recently, the intrepid and insipid Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) sheds the romantic image of earlier "Naked Gun" spots in which he and co-star Priscilla Presley made an erotic mess over a pottery wheel in parodying "Ghost."
In one of the new trailers, the camera pans up a motorcycle boot to a rough character astride a Harley-Davidson motorcycle cradling a sawed-off shotgun. The announcer declares, "Same make, same model, better hair." Nielsen whips off his sunglasses to show his techno-red eyes and declares, "Trust me." Cut to a logo reminiscent of the "T2" logo. This one, however, reads "21/2" Cut back to Nielsen who warns, "Hasta la vista, baby."
Producer Bob Weiss says that the idea originated with associate producer Bob Locash, when they were sitting around chewing the fat with writer-director David Zucker. That was July 11, a Thursday. "By Friday, we had planned it all out and managed to locate a motorcycle, a studio, a hairdresser, some props and, luckily, found that Leslie had some free time on Saturday."
The three spots were shot in a single day, with the trio writing the script as they went along. By Monday, they were huddled in the editing room and managed to finish all three at the stroke of midnight. The spots certainly won't hurt "21/2" - after three weeks in release the police parody has grossed nearly $58 million. Weiss is certain that the public's response to their "Terminator" parody will give their own film "a good goose."
A spokesman for Tri-Star Pictures, distributor of "Terminator 2," said, "We're flattered by the imitation. Audiences, of course, should accept no sub-sti-tutes."
And how did Nielsen feel about being co-opted into yet another parody? "He loves it," says Weiss. "And besides, I think his hair looks better this way." - KENT BLACK
- In the new trailer for Disney's "Billy Bathgate," a movie based on E.L. Doctorow's bestseller about a boy who comes of age hanging out with gangster Dutch Schultz, there's a shot of co-stars Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman kissing to the tune of "Bye Bye Blackbird."
Though Disney would like to pack up all its care and woe when it comes to the $40 million film, the movie - problematic from the start - continues to be a major headache.
The trouble began in pre-production, when planning for the monster-sized project stretched on three or four weeks longer than anticipated. In order to make a projected June release date, director Robert Benton - known as a leisurely film maker - was asked to come up with a rough cut of the movie in 16 weeks instead of the 22 he had bargained for. The studio concedes that the chance that it would be suitable for release was a long shot, but why not try?
What they saw, in the words of one studio insider, was "a mess" - a cut that satisfied neither Disney, Benton (who didn't have time to shoot the ending he visualized), nor the notoriously demanding Hoffman. While some blame the interior, literary nature of the material, others question the selection of Benton - a man who, they claim, is more comfortable with kinder, gentler material ("Places in the Heart," "Kramer vs. Kramer") than with a violence-packed script.
Ridiculous, retorts one top-level Disney executive. "Bob (Benton) wrote `Bonnie and Clyde,' so he's no stranger to violence. And, of course, Dustin is distressed - he's a perfectionist, distressed ever since I've been in the business. Though this picture has been a serious pain . . . don't take that to mean it's not creatively viable. This is not a troubled, out-of-control movie. The problems range from minor to modest . . . they're certainly not monumental. People accuse Hollywood of making release dates - not movies. We want to give this film the time it needs so that won't happen in this case."
Disney optimistically predicts "Billy Bathgate" will be released late this year or early next year after a couple of weeks of reshoots. Scheduling them, acknowledges the studio, has also been a handful. Kidman can't get started until she winds up what Imagine Films is calling "the untitled Ron Howard project" in which she stars with husband Tom Cruise. Hoffman is currently immersed in "Hook," Steven Spielberg's retelling of the Peter Pan classic. Because that film is also well behind schedule, it may be September before the actor can put Captain Hook behind him and, once again, inhabit the role of Dutch Schultz. - ELAINE DUTKA