The Player : New Leader Appears to Be Building Momentum at Columbia

It’s a scene straight out of “The Player,” director Robert Altman’s blistering satire on Hollywood.

Inside the modern office of Columbia Pictures Chairman Mark Canton, the phones are ringing so fast that it takes three assistants to answer them. The boss is still in transit. But that’s not a problem, since the most pressing calls are smoothly transferred to him on his car phone, which boasts call waiting.

By the time Canton strides through the door at 11 a.m., he already looks spent. The crucial holiday season is looming. He is also in the midst of back-to-back premiere parties for two high-profile movies that will do less than hoped-for business: “Hero,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Geena Davis, and “Mr. Saturday Night,” the latest Billy Crystal comedy.

But the fevered environment in which Canton functions seems to be working for him. In his first year, the 43-year-old executive has boosted productivity and morale at Columbia, which has had three chiefs in three years.

Canton’s batting average at the box office is impressive as well. It includes such hits as “A League of Their Own,” “Single White Female” and “Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers” and only one major league strikeout, the much-maligned “Radio Flyer.”

While most of the projects were in motion when Canton arrived, colleagues say he immersed himself in everything from script revisions to casting and marketing. His respected inner circle includes production chief Michael Nathanson, who acquired many of the most successful projects; Sid Ganis, who has turned Columbia’s troubled marketing department around, and distribution chief Jeff Blake, who was hired away from Paramount Pictures.

“Even with what already existed here, everything has been worked on,” Canton said in an interview at his office, which is dominated by a stylized poster from an early production of “Batman.” “We’ve become a cutting-edge studio.”

Canton’s riskier choices include director Martin Scorsese’s period drama, “The Age of Innocence,” scheduled for release next year, and “A River Runs Through It,” directed by Robert Redford, which Columbia acquired for $7.5 million. Most often, however, Canton’s taste runs to star-driven, mainstream movies such as “A League of Their Own.”

Canton’s personal life also revolves around mainstream Hollywood. A weekend fixture at the Malibu Colony, he is known for obsessing over which actor he’s seated next to at social events.

Those relationships have led some critics to label him as star-struck. But they also have their practical advantages. Canton scored a coup when Columbia landed Arnold Schwarzenegger for his first post-”Terminator 2” movie, next summer’s “The Last Action Hero.”

Other upcoming projects include writer Neil Simon’s “Lost in Yonkers” and a Bill Murray comedy called “Groundhog Day.” Columbia also has two of the holiday season’s most anticipated films in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” from director Francis Ford Coppola and “A Few Good Men,” which stars Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson.

One of Canton’s competitors, Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, says Canton deserves credit for making quality movies, even if not all are blockbusters. “Regardless of whether those movies are modest hits or turn into great hits, they’re really good movies,” Katzenberg said. “And all you can do is applaud them for making good movies.”

A connection that has benefited Canton is Columbia’s ties to Castle Rock Entertainment, the independent production company behind “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “A Few Good Men.” Castle Rock, part-owned by Columbia, produces an average of four movies a year for the studio.

Martin Shafer, the Castle Rock partner in charge of film operations, has high praise for Canton.

“He seems to a large extent to have re-energized Columbia,” Shafer said. “He’s a real enthusiastic, dynamic kind of guy. People there are very happy.”

Canton’s moves are even more interesting in the context of what’s happening at Sony Pictures Entertainment, the parent of Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures.

After Japan’s Sony Corp. purchased the company for $3.4 billion plus debt in 1989, extravagant talent and management contract buyouts tarred it with a reputation of profligacy and instability.

But in recent months, Sony Motion Picture Group President Jonathan Dolgen has sliced everything from marketing budgets to snack allowances. One impetus for the new fiscal sobriety is the downturn in electronics sales at Sony Corp. Operating income fell 37% to $293 million in the first quarter.

A reflection of the new bottom-line consciousness is less spending for new material. Hollywood sources say Columbia has implemented a virtual freeze on development through March.

Canton denies that, but concedes that the studio’s stance on acquisitions is more conservative. He is also exploring co-financing deals on Columbia’s most expensive films.

While the studio still cranks out costly movies, such as the $45-million “Dracula,” the slate is balanced by low-budget projects such as the $12-million “Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers.” Overall, production costs are in line with the $26-million industry average this year.

Assessing Columbia’s profitability is more difficult. Since Sony does not break out earnings for entertainment divisions, entertainment analyst Harold Vogel of Merrill Lynch in New York says it is virtually impossible to make a meaningful analysis of Columbia’s finances.

But the numbers appear to be moving in the right direction. Sony reported that overall filmed entertainment revenue rose 46% to $690 million for the first quarter ended June 30.

“Their rallying cry is, ‘Let’s do the smart thing,’ ” said a Hollywood executive who asked not to be named. “It may be an attempt at self-hypnosis, but at least they’re trying. They’re no longer spending as if there’s no tomorrow.”

Canton’s management hand at Columbia is strengthened by his close ties to Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman Peter Guber and former Co-Chairman Jon Peters, who share his frenetic personality and stylish fashion sense.

When Guber and Peters made “Batman” for Warner Bros., Canton was the executive in charge of the blockbuster. After Peters left the executive office at Sony to return to producing, Guber orchestrated Canton’s move to Columbia--which required an early exit from his Warner contract and the messy ouster of Frank Price.

Canton’s friendship with Guber has fanned rumors that he might also take over TriStar. Columbia’s sister studio has sputtered under Chairman Mike Medavoy, who produced only four films for release this year.

TriStar’s most popular movie, “Basic Instinct,” was produced by Carolco Pictures.

But Canton denies that such a move is underway. “Medavoy is in,” he said. “He’s not leaving here. People can speculate all they want. I know for a fact that Medavoy is showing up and doing his job running TriStar. All the talk about him being out is erroneous.”

Canton has matters closer to home to worry about anyway. For one thing, all eyes in Hollywood will be on the Schwarzenegger film.

Canton sees the movie as a franchise: Its import is so great that he persuaded Schwarzenegger and director John McTiernan to join him in a presentation to Sony executives who had come in recently from Tokyo.

“My goal is to make the studio more profitable,” Canton said. “Next summer is the season that will make or break me.”