A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : MERCHANDISING MADNESS : To Market, to Market to Buy a Fat . . . Velociraptor and a Jumbo Fries

The invasion of Tyrannosaurus Rexes and velociraptors is imminent.

Could this be anything else than the expected merchandising mania over Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park,” the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel about a dinosaur theme park gone amok? The movie’s now shooting on sound-stages in Los Angeles and stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sir Richard Attenborough.

In stores next summer will be a lineup of dinosaur playthings for sale, a series of video games, a children’s book, a “Making of . . .” book, a paperback re-release of “Jurassic Park” with the movie’s stars on the cover, and, of course, a McDonalds fast-food promotion. (Spicy Pterodactyl Wings?)

And that’s only what MCA-Universal, the studio that’s releasing the movie next summer, will reveal now. The licensing and merchandising campaign is only just getting off the ground.

“Dinosaurs are so intriguing. We think there’s a huge interest in everything connected to them and our licensing program will hopefully tap into that,” said Brad Globe, vice president of marketing for Amblin Entertainment, which is producing the $70-million film for Universal.

To give the “Jurassic” products a boost, paleontologist John Horner, curator of the Museum of the Rockies at Montana State University, has been hired to advise on the authenticity of the dinosaur toys, which Globe promises will be “more real than anyone has ever seen.”

Will they look as frightening as Stan Winston’s life-size robotic dinosaurs used in the movie? Those T-Rexes are 40 feet long and have “teeth like steak knives,” said Horner, who advised Spielberg on the first week of filming in the Mojave Desert. The velociraptors--another type of predatory dinosaur in the story--have “claws like sickles,” Horner added. Neither Kenner Toys, the master licensee, nor any of the other manufacturers will reveal any details about their “Jurassic Park” line.

When the youth market catches the fever, as they did for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Batman” and “The Simpsons” merchandise, the entertainment companies backing the movie or television series easily make back their production costs, sometimes many times over. Licensees pay entertainment companies between 5% and 10% of the wholesale price of the items they make. That might not seem like much, but consider that sales of “Batman” merchandise worldwide were estimated to have reached $1 billion.

No doubt, that’s the rationale behind Amblin-Universal’s willingness to gamble big bucks on such an expensive property like “Jurassic Park” (the movie rights alone cost $2 million)-- knowing its costs today might be offset by merchandise sales down the line.

Not that all movie tie-in campaigns work. It wasn’t hard to miss all those “Dick Tracy” watches, figurines, handcuffs, etc. on sale tables everywhere.

But Robert McCoy, editorial director of the New York-based trade publication Toy & Hobby World, said: “If (Universal) does something creative that captures the imagination of consumers, there’s no doubt ‘Jurassic Park’ merchandise will sell.” He added a word of caution: “In this economy, there are many fewer leisure dollars available to a lot of families.”

Lucky for Universal, the dinosaur craze hasn’t yet waned--and developments (fiction and fact) surrounding “Jurassic Park” have kept it in the news. This raises awareness on the film even without publicity-minded Hollywood manipulating it.

For those who didn’t read the book (250,000 copies in hardcover alone), recent scientific discoveries have echoed Crichton’s key premise that prehistoric DNA exists in amber. (That it can be cloned into living dinosaurs is the fictional part Crichton exploited to horrifying results in his book.)

Also in the last few weeks, headlines were made when Spielberg himself became a correspondent for a local news station when Hurricane Iniki devastated the island of Kauai--where the movie crew was shooting location scenes.

Whether the script tones down the gore and guts of the novel--the intestines of one devious scientist fall out of his stomach after he’s ripped into by a T-Rex--may also affect the sale of merchandise. The movie would have to earn a PG-13 rating or lower to draw in the age group Universal and the licensees need to get the kind of multimillion-dollar sales they crave.

A source for “Jurassic Park,” which is a closed set to anyone other than cast and crew, said the movie aims for thrills, not spilled viscera.

“There’s more a suggestion of terror--along the line of ‘Jaws,’ ” the source said.

One thing’s for sure, if the movie’s a hit, can we expect the “Jurassic Park” ride on the Universal Studios tour close behind?

“No doubt,” Globe said.