MOVIES - April 28, 1988

Warner Bros. Books won’t be able to amortize the whopping $4.94 million it paid for sequel rights to “Gone With the Wind” by releasing the movie after the book’s publication. The sum--second only to the $5 million William Morrow paid for James Clavell’s “Whirlwind”--is for book rights only . The movie rights to the sequel are still up for grabs through the William Morris Agency, the agent for Mitchell’s estate. The sequel, to be written by historical novelist Alexandra Ripley, is scheduled for publication in the spring of 1990. It’s estimated that Warners will have to sell 250,000 hardback copies and 3 million paperbacks just to break even. Margaret Mitchell’s original classic has sold 25 million copies since its publication in 1936.