A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : BETTER THAN FICTION? : Attention All You Conspiracy Buffs: The October Surprise Movie Could Be Plural

Now that “JFK,” Oliver Stone’s take on the Kennedy assassination, is on its way to theater next month, what’s left for socially conscious filmmakers looking for conspiracies to unravel? Now there’s the “October Surprise”-- the dark tale of political intrigue that suggests President Bush and the late William Casey were involved in a plot to delay the release of U.S. hostages held in Iran until after the 1980 presidential election. The highly controversial subject has already spawned books and looks like it’s headed for the big screen.

In addition to Columbia Pictures and Jon Peters’ acquisition this week of former National Security Council specialist Gary Sick’s just-published “October Surprise, America’s Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan,” writer-director Andy Davis (“Above the Law”) is developing an “October Surprise” project to possibly star Steven Seagal. In addition, Stone is reportedly developing a “Surprise” film.

“This is really ‘All the President’s Men’ for the ‘90s,” says William Morris agent Jim Stein, who negotiated the sale of Sick’s book to Columbia. “It’s an incredibly hot and important story.”

Australian journalist Ian Masters, who’s been reporting on the events and collaborated with Davis on their “October Surprise” script, agrees: “I get endless calls from Hollywood producers wanting to do a film about this,” he says. “There’s a cult that’s been following it.”

Although sources indicate that the Columbia film--the first project for Jon Peters’ recently established Peters Entertainment Co.--will stick closely to the evidence presented in Sick’s book, Andy Davis admits he’s taking a different approach. “It’s going to be fictionalized,” he says. “It’ll be more of an action piece set against the background of what we believe really went on.”

Masters said that due to the controversial nature of the material, some studios are reluctant to get involved with the project. Even though Seagal and Davis wanted to make the film at Warner Bros., where Seagal is based, he said, the studio ultimately decided to turn down the script. “They basically said this would be a risky project and too controversial to make a film about,” he says. A Warners’ spokesman denied this, though, saying “the studio is not interested in doing the project for a number of reasons, which had nothing to do with the political nature of the story.” Warner Bros., after all, is releasing Stone’s “JFK,” which has already generated debate for its exploration of alternative theories about Kennedy’s assassination.

Davis, who wanted to get his “October Surprise” movie into theaters before next year’s presidential election, realizes now that’s impossible. “This is a very tough subject,” he says. “I hope somebody can get it made.”