Unraveling a Hollywood Mystery : Movies: Future Films comes into town under a wrap of secrecy. Now, it says it alone has the answer to making successful movies.

What would you say if a new company claimed it alone had discovered the secret of making hit movies without any misses? That it had the crucial formula for success that has eluded Hollywood?

Wouldn’t you ask: “What gives?”

That is the reaction Future Films has been getting from Hollywood since it announced itself as a film industry player. The sheer chutzpah has been enough to keep people in the industry talking and wondering.

Here’s what happened:

In mid-July, an unknown entity began a two-week advertising campaign of puzzling full-page ads in the show-business trade newspapers, Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In addition, the mystery company began a direct-mail campaign to “the top 1,000 people in the entertainment industry.” Finally, early last week, the company identified itself in ads as Future Films Inc. and a flurry of press releases were faxed to the media.

But even though the mystery has a name, the company is still an unknown commodity.

Here’s how Robert Cefail, Future Films’ chief executive officer, explains the company’s strategy:

Future Films will begin production early next year. “We’ll make films that the public wants,” Cefail says. And he knows what the public wants because he says he has been surveying public tastes for six years. Among the traits are less sex, nudity and profanity, but much more comedy and happy endings. He calls the films he plans to make “McMovies.”

Cefail says the crucial component of the company’s formula for success will be a national survey of public taste, which will begin in September.

He says anyone will be able to participate in the survey by calling a 900 number, answering the questions and supplying their address so they can be mailed subsequent questionnaires about movie subjects, stars and storyline traits. It will cost callers at least $2 a call, but Cefail said his data shows the public will pay it, “if they know they are getting something in return.”

The “return,” Cefail promises, will be designer T-shirts to callers, tickets to Future Films’ future movies and the possibility of appearing in one of the company’s productions.

He anticipates that 700,000 calls per month to the 900 numbers will help provide production capital and, as any marketing professional knows, a mailing list.

Hollywood is no stranger to test marketing and using formulaic approaches in filmmaking, but unlike Future Films’ plan, it doesn’t rely exclusively on public-opinion surveying.

The company does not own any scripts. But Cefail says that’s no problem. “They will be selected from an already overwhelming supply of scripts” that he thinks he can attract from across the country.

And in a comment that is sure to strike a chord of disbelief with screenwriters, Cefail says: “Once a script is selected, it doesn’t change.”

He adds that Future Films will begin its search for survey-correct scripts in the fall. At that time, writers will be asked to submit screenplays and, as a rule of thumb, Cefail says that any script corresponding with 75% of the traits the public wants will be considered for production.

“Hollywood executives make decisions, but they don’t know about the public’s feelings. And they get canned every three years,” he says. “We’re going to include the public in making films, not exclude them.”

Cefail says his survey results matched the storylines and casting of such hit films as “Pretty Woman,” “Ghost” and “ ‘Crocodile’ Dundee,” as well as indicating that a movie like “Dying Young” would not perform as well as some had expected. “Just the title alone went against the tracking survey,” he says.

Although Future Films has opened a Burbank office, it has rented a facility in a warehouse district in Garland, Tex., near Dallas, where it plans to make movies. Future Films’ corporate address is listed by the Florida Secretary of State’s Office as Clearwater, Fla.

When asked whether the company has any political or religious agenda, Cefail says no. In response to questions, Cefail says he is a Scientologist. In addition, a silent partner in Future Films, Douglas L. Gamette, once operated the Scientology Mission of Redondo Beach, according to records from the California Secretary of State’s Office.

Cefail says: “We’re not affiliated with the church. I’ve heard this before. (Some) also think we’re (a religious-affiliated group). But we’re making movies.”

Cefail says Gamette prefers to remain a silent partner; he was not available for comment. Another partner is a Swiss investor, who Cefail declines to identify. None of the company’s officers has established track records in the film industry.

One of the primary assets of the major Hollywood studios is their network for film distribution. Asked about how Future Films’ movies will be distributed, Cefail says it will work with independent theaters and, in an unorthodox arrangement, possibly use auditoriums at the nation’s high schools.