There are various versions of why director Mark Rydell's "Intersection" hit a crossroads, causing Paramount Pictures to yank the film from its Christmas release slot and move it to Jan. 21. Several sources contend that the movie was stalled because of negative reaction in audience test screenings to a key passenger driving this romantic drama - Sharon Stone. But Rydell ("On Golden Pond," "For the Boys") maintains that the delay has nothing to do with Stone's performance. Rather, it was sparked by a rushed post-production schedule that he felt he couldn't meet.
In "Intersection," Stone - who portrayed the seductive Catherine Tramell in last year's thriller "Basic Instinct" - plays Sally, wife of architect Vincent Eastman (Richard Gere), who is getting dumped for Olivia (Lolita Davidovitch). The story opens with Vincent's car swerving out of control and just before he collides with the hereafter, Vincent's life flashes before his eyes. Therein, the story unfolds, love tryst and all.According to one Paramount source, "Some of the early test screenings about Sharon were brutal. They didn't like seeing her play the wife. She's very cold in the picture where Lolita is very warm, which is why Lolita's Olivia attracts Gere's character in the first place."
But delaying the $45 million film's release until next year was not triggered by results of some test audiences trashing Stone's performance, insist its director and the studio.
Rydell says he's not even aware of the negative reaction to Stone. In fact, he calls Stone's performance stellar.
Like Paramount, Rydell says the picture wouldn't have been finished in time for a Dec. 25 release.
"At first, Paramount was trying to make me rush to put this picture out for Christmas because they felt it had the star power of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone needed for their big Christmas release," says Rydell. "But they ended up conceding to my pressure. The film needed some finishing touches."
Insiders however, say the film was delayed because of problems with the story that tended to drag in parts. The screenplay, by Marshall Brickman and David Rayfiel, was inspired by the French film "Les Choses de la Vie."
"This is a tough picture to sell because they're telling an audience, `Hey, watch this guy go into a skid for the first 15 minutes, then hold that thought for the next 11/2 hours while we flash back through his life.' The audience knows the ending before the picture even gets started! That's a big commitment to ask from any audience," says one Paramount source. -JUDY BRENNAN
- When screenwriter Randi Mayem Singer was just Randi Mayem she, like a lot of other brides-to-be, went through prenuptial terror. When Leonard Goldberg, an independent producer at 20th Century Fox, took his daughter to a bachelorette party recently, he was mystified by all of the last-minute craziness.
Could there be a movie in it, say, like a female version of "Diner," he asked Singer, who has a two-picture writing contract at the studio following her successful adaptation (sharing credit with Leslie Dixon) of the nation's top box-office hit, "Mrs. Doubtfire."
Definitely, she recalled telling him. Thus, the script for "The Secret Life of Girls" was born, a romantic comedy disclosing intimate conversations and silly antics (and her real-life bridesmaids' identities, which will be disguised via the old composite character trick).
"Secret Life" moves the time frame forward from the '60s of "Diner" to the '90s and changes the gender of its leading actors. There's the anxious bride, the divorcee, the careerist, the seemingly happily married woman who isn't and another with a lot of beaus but no serious prospect.