MOVIES : UPDATE : Hollywood and AIDS: Turning the Corner

The AIDS epidemic has revealed some of the best and worst of Hollywood. On the plus side, there’s been an outpouring of money and concern. On the minus side, a major Hollywood studio has yet to put anything about AIDS on the screen.

In 10 years of the epidemic, only the small-scale “Longtime Companion,” distributed by the independent Samuel Goldwyn Co., has made it to a theatrical release and also aired on “American Playhouse.” TV has been far more prolific.

But there are signs of change.

At least three major studio feature film projects are in development, one of them involving Barbra Streisand and another linked to Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of the Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs.” Two are working at Columbia Pictures and one at TriStar Pictures--both of which are owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Some activists have criticized Streisand, saying she hasn’t been as active or vocal in the fight against AIDS as they might have wished. But her associates say she has been working out of the spotlight, and that her personal foundation has donated more than $350,000 to AIDS causes.

Her efforts have won the admiration of AIDS Project Los Angeles. The agency will award Streisand its 1992 Commitment to Life Award, a recognition that is presented annually during a star-studded fund-raising affair. Previous recipients have included Bette Midler, Madonna and Elizabeth Taylor.

“I think she does a lot of things behind the scenes, and I don’t think she’s ever sought the recognition,” said APLA Chairman David Wexler.

Her interest in AIDS, according to Streisand’s personal representative Martin Erlichman, is partially behind her pursuit of outspoken AIDS activist Larry Kramer’s play “The Normal Heart” for a Columbia Pictures film.

“We are in negotiations, but they’ve been on and off for several years. Hopefully this one will get completed,” Erlichman said. He would not comment on whether this will be Streisand’s follow-up to “The Prince of Tides.” “All I can say is that there is no project that has precedence.”

Kramer said he is keeping is fingers crossed about the movie version. “There’s no one I want more to film my play,” he said. Of Streisand’s commitment to AIDS, Kramer said: “Barbra cares passionately about AIDS, about equality and about the right to be and love whom you want to.”

The play, written in the mid-’80s, is a drama and love story between two men, set in the early days of AIDS. Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, President Ronald Reagan and society’s misunderstanding are the story’s “villains.” Asked why it’s been almost seven years before serious negotiations for his play began, Kramer, who has registered anger in the past about Hollywood’s AIDS response, said, “Hollywood being what it is, it’s just taken a long time.”

“It is a difficult subject to make a movie about,” agreed veteran producer Barry Krost, who has his own film project about AIDS in the works. Krost has been active in AIDS causes for years, serves on the AIDS Project LA board and co-produced the fourth Commitment to Life event with Mark Canton, the chairman of Columbia Pictures, where his film is to be made. “There are not that many movies anyway, about death from other diseases,” he said.

“Four years ago (Canton) approached me before it was fashionable to look for AIDS scripts and said that if ever I found a subject, he would be interested. But so many scripts seemed depressing. But when we came up with this idea, we went to him, and he said ‘Yes, I want to do it.’ It took less than five minutes.”

Krost’s project is “Family Values,” a drama about a straight man and his gay brother who has tested positive for the virus that is believed to cause AIDS. “It’s the story of the straight man learning that family values are not limited to the traditional family.

The screenplay, by Barry Sandler (“Crimes of Passion,” “Making Love”), is scheduled to be delivered to Columbia by early fall.

Canton said he sees no problem in having two films about AIDS at his studio. “If you can do a movie about this subject that is educational and reach a wide audience, it can have a real value. I don’t see that there is one movie to be made about a subject,” he said.

A third project is Demme’s long-discussed drama, which was formerly locked up with Orion Pictures (the financially ailing distributor of “Lambs”). The film is now titled “Probable Cause,” and is described by TriStar Pictures Chairman Mike Medavoy as a contemporary drama that has AIDS as part of the story.

Medavoy said all the arrangements have been completed to move the film to TriStar, the script is in hand and he expects Demme to begin shooting around September. “It’s a go,” he said.