A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : CITY OF LIGHTS, CITY OF MOHICANS : Dying to See ‘Last of the Mohicans’? Don’t Hang Around the U.S.: Hop the Concorde

The French will be getting the jump on Michael Mann’s “The Last of the Mohicans,” starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe, when the movie opens Wednesday--there a full month before its American release. Though it’s not a first, it’s certainly a departure: A major American motion picture opening soon at a theater . . . overseas.

The $35-million historical drama--a romance between a frontiersman (the adopted son of a Mohican) and the independent daughter of a British officer during the French and Indian Wars--was originally scheduled to open in the States on July 4 and in France on Aug. 26. Complications set in, however, when the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox, pushed back the American opening to extricate the film from the summer action-adventure glut and better position it for Oscar consideration.

Morgan Creek, which put up half the money in exchange for the international rights, was reluctant to drop the French release date. They argued that the timing was good (the French would just be returning from their August vacations) and that the best theaters had been lined up--47 screens in Paris alone, only one less than for their 1991 “Robin Hood”). Fox, however, had to be convinced.

“We were initially uncomfortable with the arrangement,” admits Tom Sherak, executive vice president of Fox. “The American release usually triggers everything that happens overseas. When a picture is pulling in American dollars, working well at home, it develops a persona by the time it gets over there.

“We don’t gain a lot by opening in France,” Sherak continues. “If it does well, the French grosses don’t help you that much. If it doesn’t work, people over here label it a ‘problem’ picture. We came around when the movie’s foreign distributor assured us he’d treat it as an epic movie--an ‘event.’ ”

Gary Barber, chief operating officer of Morgan Creek Productions, insists the prognosis is good. “Not only does the picture have a French backdrop,” he begins, “but the Cooper novel is a phenomenally well-known title in France--with an awareness level close to ‘Robin Hood.’ Daniel Day-Lewis has a higher profile in Europe where, more so than in the U.S., ‘My Left Foot’ crossed over into the mainstream. The director, Michael Mann, is also familiar to the French through ‘Manhunter’ and TV’s ‘Miami Vice’ and ‘Crime Story.”’

Initial returns have been promising. Last Wednesday, most of the 28 seaside theaters in the south of France showing “The Last of the Mohicans” prior to the national French opening reported sell-out crowds. The French newsmagazine L’ Express called the film “the greatest achievement of the new Indian wave of Hollywood movies that started with ‘Dances With Wolves.’ ”

Though early U.S. screenings also generated strong response, Fox and Morgan Creek acknowledge a couple of hurdles. Period pieces can be somewhat dicey to sell, especially to the younger set whose repeat business makes for blockbuster status. “We’re positioning it as a love story for everyone,” says Sherak. “We think it will start older but work its way down.”

Another unknown: the box office draw of Day-Lewis, an actor who despite an Oscar (“My Left Foot”) and acclaim in films such as “My Beautiful Laundrette,” “A Room With a View” and “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” has never had to demonstrate his clout in a mass-appeal, major studio release.

“People are calling ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ a cross between ‘Dances With Wolves,’ ‘Barry Lyndon’ and ‘Robin Hood,’ ” says the cautiously optimistic Barber. “Add up their total gross and divide by three . . . I’ll take it.”