The Hero Biz

Heroes from the comics have been filling theaters lately, but three Marvel comics super-guys are languishing very unheroically without production or distribution dates.

* Already used in a TV movie, “Spider-Man” was announced for feature filming two years ago but is still in development at 21st Century Film Corp. Neil Ruttenberg is writing a script. Columbia Pictures Entertainment--which has a distribution agreement with 21st Century--says there’s “quite a bit of enthusiasm” at the studio about the project.

* The already-filmed “Captain America”--also from 21st Century, for release through Columbia--sits on the shelf, possibly to be released in late summer or early fall. But a Columbia source was less optimistic, calling the picture amateurish and “unreleasable.”

* “The Punisher,” based on the Marvel comic about a one-man anti-criminal death squad, was originally due in the spring of 1989. Starring Dolph Lundgren as the leather-clad title character, the picture got entangled in the sale of New World Pictures, which produced.

Since sold to I.V.E., which plans an upcoming video release, the film will have its “U.S. premiere” July 8 during the L.A. Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention at the Shrine Auditorium. Convention organizer Bruce Schwartz says this will be the film’s only 35-millimeter screening before its journey to video shelves.