Sony-Owned Tri-Star Unveils Plans for Films in ’91

Saying there has been no interference in content from its Japanese owners, Tri-Star Pictures on Friday revealed its first production schedule under Sony Corp. ownership. The ambitious program will put 15 feature films before the cameras during 1991, involving such filmmakers as David Lean, Steven Spielberg, Milos Forman and Roland Joffe, and stars Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro, Robin Williams, Michael Douglas and Julia Roberts.

Mike Medavoy, who became chairman of Tri-Star after years of heading production for Orion Pictures, dismissed concerns that foreign ownership of Hollywood studios might affect the content of their movies, saying, “We’re on a direction that is no different than when we were under American ownership.”

Apparently, there has been no interference in budgets, either. Medavoy would not discuss project costs of any of 15 films announced, but he said they are in line with the average major studio budget, which was about $24 million in 1990. That would mean a total production budget of more than $350 million for the first year of Sony-backed Tri-Star pictures.

During 1991, Medavoy said Tri-Star will release 12 movies, two more than this year. Among those scheduled to be made and released next year are: “Nostromo,” director Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt’s adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel about an Italian sailor who helps smuggle a shipload of silver and then keeps it for himself; “Bugsy Siegel,” directed by Barry Levinson, and starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, about the gangster who “created” Las Vegas; and “Hook,” an adaptation of the James M. Barrie “Peter Pan” books and play, starring Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Robin Williams as Peter and Julia Roberts as Tinkerbell.

Friday’s press luncheon at Tri-Star’s temporary Burbank headquarters (a new executive office building is being constructed at the Sony/Columbia lot where MGM once reigned in Culver City), was the first such meeting since Medavoy was named chairman nine months ago and Sony acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment late last year.

“I believe we’ve put together a rather spectacular number of films in a short time,” Medavoy said, giving credit to his production team and the company’s relationship with Carolco Pictures, which produced the Tri-Star-distributed “Total Recall” last summer, and generated $120 million in ticket sales. As part of the studio’s future direction, he also announced “first-look” production deals with actors Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and others.

Medavoy, responding to the intense interest in Japanese takeovers in Hollywood, said he “never has a sense that the Sony people are around.” He said he regularly meets with Peter Guber and Jon Peters, the co-chairmen of Columbia Pictures Entertainment.

“I tell them everything I’m doing,” Medavoy said, adding that his contract guarantees him autonomy over the Tri-Star operation. He said Tri-Star and the Columbia Pictures division operate like sister companies and that he confers with Frank Price, his Columbia counterpart, to avoid competing for projects.

Among the other Tri-Star projects announced Friday:

“Thunderheart,” a contemporary Native American thriller, produced by DeNiro; “City of Joy,” to be shot in Calcutta, India, directed by Roland Joffe; a Dr. Suess-based film, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go,” that will combine live action and animation, produced by Joffe; an untitled pop musical produced by Warrington Hudlin and directed by Reginald Hudlin; an untitled Milos Forman film, which Medavoy described as “top secret.”

Also: a Richard Gere starrer for Rastar Prods., “Mr. Jones,” about a manic-depressive man and his relationship with his psychiatrist; “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” based on the Tom Robbins novel, with Gus Van Sant (“Drugstore Cowboy”) directing and writing.

From Carolco: Michael Douglas starring in the controversial and erotic “Basic Instinct,” written by Joe Eszterhas and Gary Goldman, directed by Paul Verhoeven; “Isobar,” a futuristic action-thriller to star Sylvester Stallone; “Bartholemew vs. Neff,” about feuding neighbors, starring Stallone and John Candy; “Universal Soldier,” a futuristic thriller with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, about an officer out to stop his unit of genetically engineered soldiers who have gone awry.