Gulf Maneuver

As the Persian Gulf crisis continues, with U.S. troops deployed as part of Operation Desert Shield, producer Menahem Golan has been revamping “S.E.A.L.S,” which he’ll start shooting later this month in Israel.

Starring Rob Lowe, it’s now called “Desert Shield (S.E.A.L.S.)”--with the plot being reworked to take aim at Iraq.

Written several years ago, when Golan was a partner at Cannon Films, the script originally had Iranian missiles directed at U.S. ships in the gulf. Under co-writer and director Shimon Dotan, a former Israeli underwater commando, the storyline now has members of the Navy’s elite commando squad out to thwart Iraqi missiles tipped with chemical warheads.

“We made some modifications,” admits Priscilla MacDonald, a spokeswoman for Golan’s 21st Century Film Corp., who insists the company “isn’t exploiting” the situation.

“Movies are made all the time about real people and real events,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with dramatizing a situation that happens, or is happening.”

Golan has previously raided the headlines with “Operation: Thunderbolt” (1977), shot just after the Israeli commandos rescued hijacked passengers at Entebbe in 1976. And the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner inspired Golan’s “The Delta Force” (1986).