CIMINO SUES BEGELMAN OVER FINAL CUT ISSUE

In a creative and financial dispute over his unreleased movie “The Sicilian,” director Michael Cimino has asked a federal court in Los Angeles to block producer David Begelman from making a final cut of the film.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Cimino also accused Gladden Entertainment Corp., a closely held company that is producing the movie, of fraud and breach of contract. The suit asks $5 million in punitive damages, and claims that Begelman is improperly seeking to cut the movie. Begelman is Gladden’s president and chief executive officer.

Bertram Fields, an attorney for Gladden, said he hadn’t seen the complaint. But Fields called its claims “hogwash” in an interview Wednesday.

According to both the complaint and Fields, a long-simmering creative dispute over the movie boiled over earlier this year after Cimino submitted a version of the Mafia epic that ran about 2 hours and 25 minutes. Under Gladden’s contract with 20th Century Fox Film Corp., which partly financed and is distributing the movie, the film was to be limited to two hours, according to Fields.

Cimino later re-cut the film to 2 hours and 5 minutes. But Fields claimed that in doing so the director “eliminated four or five key scenes,” including a massacre scene that the attorney claims is “the most important scene” in the movie. Fields said he believes Cimino eliminated the crucial scenes “as a device to get us to accept a longer version.” Begelman then informed Cimino that he intended to re-cut the movie himself, but hasn’t done so yet according to Fields.

The complaint says that each of Cimino’s cuts was made in “good faith.”

Cimino, whose films include “The Deer Hunter,” “Year of the Dragon” and “Heaven’s Gate,” couldn’t be reached for comment. His attorneys declined to elaborate on the claims in their complaint.

According to the complaint, Begelman in 1985 enticed Cimino to make the movie by promising him “final cut,” a right prized among directors. Soon afterward, however, Begelman began “pressuring” Cimino to reduce his $2.5-million salary because Begelman’s company was “in precarious financial condition,” according to the complaint. At the time, the complaint alleges, Begelman called Gladden “a ship in danger of being split apart.”

Fields said that Gladden “is not in trouble, financial or otherwise.”

The complaint also alleges that Gladden and Begelman provided the Writers Guild of America with a screenplay that included a “forged cover,” which eliminatedCimino’s name as co-writer. Various versions of the screenplay were written or rewritten by Cimino, Steve Shagan and Gore Vidal, according to the complaint.

Based on a best-selling novel by author Mario Puzo, “The Sicilian” tells the story of Salvatore Giuliano, a modern-day Sicilian hero who is brought to America by Michael Corleone--a key figure in the “Godfather” movies. Fox originally intended to release the film this spring, but had recently moved it to a September or October release date. A Fox spokesman said the movie is still set for release this fall.

Starring Christopher Lambert and shot principally in Sicily last year, the movie was produced on schedule and for only “moderately” more than its relatively small $8.5-million budget, according to one source close to the project. “This wasn’t a runaway project,” the source said.

“Heaven’s Gate,” a turn-of-the-century Western drama released by United Artists in 1980, originally ran 225 minutes and cost about $40 million to produce. Severely panned by critics and ignored by audiences during a brief release, the film was radically shortened and rereleased but still became one of the most notorious box-office flops in movie history.

“Year of the Dragon,” another Cimino-directed film released by MGM/UA Entertainment Co. in 1985, cost more than $22 million to produce and was moderately successful at the box office.

An executive familiar with “The Sicilian” film said that Fox brass viewed a 2-hour-and-40-minute version of it last January, and “weren’t happy” because of the length. Two sources close to Cimino said they weren’t aware of the viewing or of any version longer than the approximately 2-hour-and-25-minute one. But those sources concurred that the director submitted both a long and a short version to Gladden.

Gladden has produced three movies, all distributed by Fox, since Begelman and other executives formed the company about three years ago. The most recent of those films, “Mannequin,” has taken in about $36 million at the box office since its release earlier this year, but the two previous movies, “Manhattan Project” and “Wisdom” did much less well.

A longtime agent, Begelman in May, 1978, pleaded no contest to grand theft charges stemming from his forging $40,000 in studio checks while head of movie production at Columbia Pictures. He was later fined $5,000 and placed on probation.

In 1979, Begelman became top creative officer of what was then called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. He left MGM before it signed Cimino to make “Year of the Dragon.” He formed his own production company three years ago.

A secretary in Begelman’s office Wednesday referred all calls concerning the dispute with Cimino to the producer’s attorney.

Despite the battle over the “The Sicilian’ “s length, Fields said that Begelman isn’t unhappy with the movie. “The picture, I think, is quite good,” the attorney added.