3 Leaders Offer Studio Revival Formula : Entertainment: The chairmen of Universal, Disney and 20th Century Fox want less greed, lower costs and inspired films.

There is nothing wrong with the revenue-flat movie business that won’t improve with less greed, lower costs and a shift away from uninspired films.

That recipe for recovery was delivered Thursday by the chairmen of three major Hollywood studios, who addressed a conference sponsored by Variety, the entertainment trade publication, and Wertheim Schroder & Co., a New York brokerage.

Tom Pollock of Universal, Jeffrey Katzenberg of Walt Disney Studios and Joe Roth of 20th Century Fox said that while their studios did well in 1991, the industry is in need of adjustment.

“From a business standpoint,” Pollock said, “I think the movie business is at a low ebb. It’s going to get better. But right now, it’s pretty bad.”

The executives joined in a panel discussion titled “Making a Business of the Movie Business.” But based on what Roth had to say, the the panel was misnamed.

“We’ve become the business of movies instead of the movie business,” Roth lamented, adding that the reigning Hollywood “climate” favors formula-driven films at the expense of fresh ideas.

Often the result, he said, is a cost-bloated, inferior product. “The fall (box office revenues) stank because the movies stank,” he said.

Katzenberg, whose call for belt-tightening shook Hollywood last year, seemed to agree.

When a studio sinks $30 million to $50 million into a film, he said, the inclination is to stick with “safe,” repetitive themes.

At work, Katzenberg said, are the “killers” of successful movie making--greed and fear of failure.

“Safe is familiar, familiar is predictable, predictable is boring--and boring is failure,” Katzenberg said.