GERE’S YEAR : Warners Avoids Meeting ‘Mr. Jones’

Looking ahead, there is buzz around Hollywood that 1993 will be a good year for Richard Gere, with impressive performances in Warner Bros.’ upcoming “Sommersby” and TriStar Pictures’ “Mr. Jones.” What’s less well-known is how the two distributors have tried not to rain on each other’s parade.

In “Sommersby,” directed by Jon Amiel from a script by Nicholas Meyer and Sarah Kernochan and based on the 1982 French film “The Return of Martin Guerre,” Gere plays a Civil War veteran who returns to his wife (Jodie Foster) and community but is suspected of being an impostor. In “Mr. Jones,” he plays a manic-depressive who falls in love with his psychologist, played by Lena Olin. Directed by Mike Figgis (“Internal Affairs,” which also produced a striking Gere performance), “Jones” was written by Eric Roth and Michael Cristofer.

So far, the upbeat talk about Gere relates mainly to “Mr. Jones” (“Sommersby” was in post-production as of mid-December and hadn’t been widely screened). It began early last fall after “Jones” was shown to TriStar staffers, even though reaction to the film itself was mixed.

“I think it’s the best thing he’s ever done,” declares TriStar chairman Mike Medavoy.

“Mr. Jones” was originally scheduled to open last October. But after weighing results from test screenings, TriStar and Figgis decided to reshoot the finale, and add two new scenes. The filming, completed last month in the San Diego area, was delayed until Olin had finished her latest feature, “Romeo’s Bleeding.” So “Jones’ ” release was pushed back to April of this year.

TriStar’s move, however, conflicted with Warner Bros.’ plans to open “Sommersby” around the same time--late March, according to various sources--creating an eyeball-to-eyeball dilemma.

As one studio marketing executive confirms, opening two movies with the same lead actor in the same period “can be trouble. You’ve got the trailers running at the same time and people confused about which is which. And there’s the danger of splitting your audience, if you’re going for the same demographics. If people see a star in one movie and don’t like it, they might forget about seeing the other one. It’s better to open as far away from the other movie as you can.”

In any case, Warner Bros. blinked. Although a spokesperson for the studio insists that there was no firm release date for “Sommersby” and that TriStar’s shifting the release of “Mr. Jones” to April did not influence their strategy, Warners has decided to release “Sommersby” on Feb. 5.

“We have never made any marketing decisions about ‘Sommersby’ which have been influenced by ‘Mr. Jones,’ ” says Warners spokesperson Charlotte Kendall.

But a senior TriStar executive said it was his understanding that Warner Bros.’ decision to release “Sommersby” in early February was in response to TriStar’s decision to open “Mr. Jones” in April. A spokesman for New Regency Films, the producer of “Sommersby,” admitted that the early February release “has taken us all a bit by surprise.”

Warner Bros. recently flirted with renaming “Sommersby” “A Stranger Within,” but then went back to the original.