PINK-SLIP TURMOIL OVER COLUMBIA PUBLICISTS

It’s pink-slip day for five of Columbia Pictures’ seven media publicists, dismissed in a corporate streamlining that has touched off some emotional turmoil within the studio.

At issue is the question of who ordered the changes that eliminate five positions by combining the publicity and promotion departments.

Columbia President Guy McElwaine has taken responsibility for the action. But he hasn’t been able to quell accounts circulating inside and outside Columbia that the changes were ordered by New York--i.e., top executives at Columbia Pictures Industries, who report in turn to Coca-Cola Co., the corporate parent.

Mac St. Johns, business representative of the Publicists Guild Local 818, said Thursday that he has filed a formal grievance with Columbia. St. Johns angrily accused Columbia of breaking a promise to the guild to discuss the dismissals before acting, adding: “I know for a fact these orders came from New York. And I suspect that they came from Coca-Cola in Atlanta.”

Also rumored to be in the offing are New York-dictated trims in other divisions. If true, the dismissals would represent the latest eastward swing in the sometimes volatile relations between Columbia’s West Coast studio and its East Coast bosses.

The streamlining is said to have been ordered because Columbia’s corporate managers view traditional show-biz publicity and promotion as less valuable than sophisticated advertising, marketing and research techniques used for selling other products.

Argues one of the dismissed publicists: “It’s hard to measure in box-office dollars the value of a David Lean cover on Time.”

This week’s dismissal orders are rumored to have come from New York-based Executive Vice President Peter Sealey, a former soft-drink marketing hotshot brought in by Coca-Cola.

But McElwaine, himself a former publicist, took responsibility for the decision, adding that he would “love to say I was ordered to fire those people.” Speculation about Sealey’s role may stem from the New Yorker’s frequent visits to the studio’s marketing department, McElwaine said.

“A lot of people don’t get to see me day to day. But they do see a marketing man from New York (Sealey) who comes out here to ask what they’re doing.” McElwaine emphasized that Sealey reports directly to him on all movie marketing matters.

Sealey declined to comment. But in a Wall Street Journal article published on the day “Starman” was released last December, Sealey and other Columbia marketing executives were unusually forthright about their marketing philosophy.

“The old practices of star appearances and publicity junkets just aren’t good enough anymore,” Sealey said in the article. “Marketing is what’s going to determine long-run success and failure in this business.” The story, a marketing case study of “Starman,” was titled “How the Marketeers Perform a Vital Role in a Movie’s Success.”

“Starman”--which Columbia executives regarded as a a potential $100 million blockbuster if handled correctly, according to the Journal--opened disastrously and eventually sold only $29 million worth of tickets.

ODD COUPLE: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first post-”Terminator” mission will be “Commando” with petite Rae Dawn Chong as his leading lady.

Schwarzenegger plays a retired special operations officer who returns to action when his daughter is kidnaped by a deposed dictator holed up on a South American island. Chong, daughter of comedian Tommy Chong, plays a wisecracking stewardess unwittingly pressed into action with Schwarzenegger.

Chong is currently onscreen as an eccentric barfly in “Choose Me”; her credits also include “Beat Street,” “Quest for Fire” and the coming “American Flyer.”

“Commando” begins shooting April 15 in Los Angeles with Mark Lester directing and Joel Silver producing. Twentieth Century Fox plans a fall release.

STATISTICALLY SPEAKING: The rich films got richer and the poor got poorer in 1984, according to the first (and perhaps annual) Box Office Register by industry analyst Art Murphy.

Murphy, who compiled the almanac from weekly statistics he collects for Variety, estimates that 10% of the films released each year now generate almost half of the box-office receipts. The rest lose money. Says Murphy: “There is no such thing as a mediocre film anymore.”

The top ’84 ticket sellers were “Ghostbusters,” $221 million; “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” $175 million, and “Gremlins,” $148 million. Under the $100-million mark came “Karate Kid,” “Beverly Hills Cop” (on the basis of just four ’84 weeks), “Police Academy” and “Footloose.”

At the bottom of the totem pole were the likes of “Give My Regards to Broad Street” ($1.4 million); “Electric Dreams” ($2.1 million); “Grandview USA” ($4.7 million); “The Lonely Guy” ($4.8 million); “No Small Affair” ($5 million); “Racing With the Moon” ($5.4 million); “Streets of Fire” ($5.6 million), and “Sheena” ($5.8 million).

Murphy advertised the $65 almanac in Variety recently and has been selling four or five copies a day--more of a “platform rollout” than a wide release, he jokes. Most of the buyers have been studio executives.

TRAILERS: “Something in Common,” starring Mary Tyler Moore, Sam Waterston and Christine Lahti--all Academy Award nominees--has been given a May 13 start date by Orion Pictures. Ted Danson (“Cheers”) also stars in the film, a comedy about a widow who discovers that her best friend had been having an affair with her recently deceased husband. “Mary Tyler Moore” co-creator Allan Burns wrote the script and makes his directorial debut. . . .

Dan Aykroyd will make his “entrepreneurial” debut as executive producer of “Datenight,” which starts shooting April 15 for Columbia Pictures. “Saturday Night Live” graduates Al Franken and Tom Davis wrote the script and will appear in the film. . . .

Warner Bros. has come up with “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” as the title of the third Mad Max movie, opening July 12. Mel Gibson and Tina Turner star.