CHRISTMAS CONFUSION

When movie after movie kept dropping over like so many ducks named Howard, the Christmas season looks like a free-for-all.

That is, after some extreme confusion, Tri-Star acknowledged that director Walter Hill’s “Extreme Prejudice,” the Nick Nolte-Powers Boothe action flick, won’t be on the holiday slate--and will come out in April.

So Tri-Star’s holiday offering is “No Mercy,” a Richard Gere-Kim Basinger actioner, opening Dec. 19. (That is, according to exhibitor sources. Tri-Star officials weren’t returning calls regarding the switch.)

On that day, Cannon Films will do battle with “Allan Quartermain,” the Richard Chamberlain sequel to last year’s “King Solomon’s Mines.”

Meanwhile, Paramount Pics, based on an enthusiastic sneak preview last weekend in Tucson, is getting a leap on the competition by releasing “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” on Nov. 26--the day before Thanksgiving. The Treksters had been scheduled for Dec. 19 release--and the updating suggests that the studio has higher hopes for it.

Paramount’s other Christmas film, Eddie Murphy’s “Golden Child,” stays put on its Dec. 5 date. But exhibitors already have spent $12 million in advances to the studio.