STAGE : Mackintosh’s Golden Mega-Touch

How big is the “Les Miserables” empire?

In the United States alone, the three current companies (Los Angeles, Boston and New York) gross more than $1.4 million in ticket sales each week. “Les Miz” also is playing in Budapest, London, Oslo, Reykjavik, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Tokyo.

Cameron Mackintosh, the 41-year-old London-based producer of “Les Miz” and the mega-hits “Cats” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” projects a record-breaking 32 productions worldwide of “Les Miz”--22 more than now--in the next few years. Even “Cats,” probably the current record holder, has had 16 productions over its seven-year history, Mackintosh said.

The merchandising of everything from “Les Miz” mugs to “Les Miz” beach towels--which were in the Bloomingdale’s catalogue last Christmas--adds $40,000 a week on the average just in New York, he said. Expected this Christmas is a compact-disc recording of the entire show with an international cast.

Merchandising was just one of the lessons that Mackintosh learned from “Cats,” another international phenomenon. What hurt on “Cats,” he said, was that everybody expected the show to run for a year or two, so that tended to spread out the demand for tickets. “But the economics of these big shows,” he said, “are that they’ve got to play to virtual capacity the whole time and not just sell the prime orchestra seats and chug along except for the weekends.

“I would rather play for six months to capacity than a year or 18 months playing to 60%. And that is part of the problem we had with ‘Cats.’ It ran two years (in Los Angeles) but it did not play to capacity.” In fact, Mackintosh said, “Cats” wound up making “only around 30% profit on its (Los Angeles) engagement, which is terrible for a show where you’ve got nearly $4 million dollars tied up for over two years. . . . You’re better off at the bank.”

Just in case “Les Miz” doesn’t end up with box-office legs, the Los Angeles production has been designed so that its sets could move to San Francisco. But currently tickets are being sold here through Dec. 31.

Mackintosh said it took about six months of sold-out houses for productions to recoup their costs in New York and London, and he expects it will take about the same amount of time to pay off the $4.15-million investment here. “But it’s got to play to virtual capacity to do so,” he said.

“Les Miz” began in 1980 in France with a record album and was then staged at Paris’ Palais des Sport by its co-creators, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg, for 100 days to an audience of 500,000. The French show came to the attention of director Trevor Nunn and Mackintosh in 1982, and a completely rewritten English stage version was produced jointly by Mackintosh and the Royal Shakespeare Company in fall, 1985, first at RSC’s Barbican Theatre, then on London’s West End.

Mackintosh will produce Boublil and Schonberg’s new musical, “Miss Saigon,” a “concept album” (like “Les Miz”) that is now being recorded in London and will be staged next spring in either New York or London.

Mackintosh called “Miss Saigon” his last show for a while, saying when he finishes it he’ll take a five-year sabbatical. But he also indicates “Les Miz” is far from having run its course. A Canadian company is set for early next year, a French company for early 1990 and a film version for early 1993. A fourth U.S. company will begin touring this fall----more than 30 cities have already been booked, Mackintosh said--and the Boston company will move to Washington, D.C., on July 9, then also tour. In New York, for instance, after 14 months, the production has recouped double its investment--a 100% profit, Mackintosh said.

“It is wonderful to be able to do a show where your only criteria is talent because you don’t need a name on the marquee to sell tickets up front. The only names we need are the title and Victor Hugo.”