NEWS ANALYSIS : Four Studios Slice Up a $1.8-Billion Summer Pie

For studio executives at Orion, 20th Century Fox, Tri-Star and Universal, reading the weekly summer box office charts must produce that same sinking feeling people have when they’re renting during a real estate boom.

“Top 10 Sparklers Light B.O. Fire,” the Daily Variety headline chirped Wednesday, over a story reporting the fall of yet another film industry record.

“July 4 weekend b.o. sizzles; ‘Bat’ shatters $100 million mark,” said the Hollywood Reporter.

Box office analysts predict a $1.8-billion summer for Hollywood, a sublime figure for those who are in the game.

Paramount’s two summer releases, “Star Trek V: The FinalFrontier” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” have brought in nearly $200 million since Memorial Day. The studio figures to get another fresh infusion of cash from the eighth entry in the “Friday the 13th” series when it opens next month.

“Batman” soothed the wounds over at Warner Bros. in the wake of Clint Eastwood’s disappointing “Pink Cadillac” and has pushed the studio’s share of the summer receipts to more than $115 million. “Batman” has grossed about $10 million a day since its June 25 opening, and this Friday, it will be joined in theaters by Warner Bros. stable-mate “Lethal Weapon II,” one of the season’s box office favorites. Those pre-summer rumors about top executives being asked to clean out their desks at Warners have vanished.

Columbia, having endured the worst drought since Oklahoma dried up, has two hits in “Ghostbusters II” and “The Karate Kid III” and summer grosses of about $90 million. Later this month, the studio will release Rob Reiner’s “When Harry Met Sally,” a romantic comedy that has had early witnesses raving. This is all good news for second-year Columbia chief Dawn Steel, but in her private moments, when she lets herself imagine how well “Ghostbusters II” would have done during any other summer, she must curse the Caped Crusader.

Disney didn’t have any sure things on its summer schedule, other than the upcoming re-issue of the animated classic “Peter Pan,” but it bolo-punched the competition with “Dead Poets Society” and “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” (they’ve combined for about $95 million in grosses) and still has a Tom Hanks picture, “Turner and Hootch,” to come.

There were no signs of let-up over the holiday weekend. July Fourth, with family activities and beach weather in competition for leisure time, is considered a “soft” weekend for movie exhibitors, but box office analysts said business was down only 6% between Friday and Sunday and set an industry record for the holiday.

But only four studios have been sharing the wealth. Despite its high visibility, Orion’s “Great Balls of Fire” had a very poor opening over the July Fourth weekend, averaging less than $3,000 at 1,417 theaters. The company’s best chance now for a summer hit seems to Terry Jones’ comedy-adventure “Eric the Viking,” which opens August 4.

Universal, which opened the summer weakly with “Renegades,” got some good news with the limited release of Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” but that race relations drama seems an unlikely breakout commercial hit, and the studio’s best hopes rest with Ron Howard’s “Parenthood,” starring Steve Martin (Aug. 2).

Although it has done some summer business with the spring hold-over “See No Evil, Hear No Evil,” Tri-Star won’t really join the party until Aug. 4, when it opens the Sylvester Stallone prison drama “Lock-Up.” Tri-Star has had few summer hits in its brief history and Stallone has provided most of them. “Lock-Up” will test both the staying power of Stallone and those Tri-Star executives who hope to survive the imminent merger with Columbia.

There may be a lot of Rolaids being chomped at both MGM/UA and Fox, as executives at those companies prepare to send their big soldiers to battle. MGM/UA has the James Bond film “A Licence to Kill,” No. 16 in the most successful film series in history, opening next weekend, and Fox has James Cameron’s underwater science-fiction film “The Abyss,” reportedly made at a cost of more than $50 million, opening Aug. 9.