Sneaks ’93 : 1 Outta 224 Ain’t Bad : In a year chock full of Snipes, Hershey and sequels, our commentator says a re-release dwarfs them all

Apparently, if you like Wesley Snipes or Barbara Hershey movies, 1993 will offer you a record number of opportunities to get popcorn hulls stuck in your molars. I got a sneak peek at the Calendar’s SNEAKS ’93 list of 224 films coming this year. Wesley Snipes is in “Money Man,” “Rising Sun,” the thought-provoking “Demolition Man” and a movie for 20th Century Fox that’s not even named yet but can already boast of a cult following drawn by the name “Untitled Wesley Snipes.” Keep in mind, Disney’s “Johnny Zombie,” a movie about a dead guy who comes back to life to take his girlfriend to the prom and has to eat living flesh or he’ll decompose, has not, like many others, been cast yet. So the final data on how often you’ll see Wesley Snipes or Barbara Hershey is not in yet. I thought maybe after he said, “I’m the good guy” in “Passenger 57,” Wesley Snipes would never work again. But I guess I wasn’t thinking about the video rental market.

Barbara Hershey is in “Splitting Heirs,” “Swing Kids,” “Falling Down,” “A Dangerous Woman” and there’s someone who looks a lot like her in the trailer for “The Crying Game.” I’ve always liked Barbara Hershey, but when did the Hollywood brass catch up to me? Did they just now notice the lips? Of course, now I worry about her cracking from stress and having her personal story exploited in a made-for-television movie called “I’m Acting as Fast as I Can: The Barbara Hershey Story.”

“Falling Down” is that Michael Douglas movie about a laid-off defense worker, a character Mr. Douglas skillfully creates with a geeky haircut and horn-rimmed glasses. The guy buys a burger that’s not all he’d hoped for and then gets in a traffic jam, so he shoots a lot of people, creating a problem for Robert Duvall, who must stop him. The preview is already showing in theaters. So half of America is already deciding if they should get a sitter and go or just sneak the kiddies in and enjoy the sight of senseless killings as a family. I dare, in fact, I double dare Michael Douglas to go work in a hamburger joint for a while and see how often his burgers come out looking like the picture.

You know what’s amazing? Out of the 16 foreign films on the list--including “Olivier, Olivier,” directed by the same woman, Agnieszka Holland, who directed “Europa Europa”--only one is about killing people. My God, those foreigners are dull. It’s no wonder film buff Pat Buchanan is so against having them come into this country.

For those of you who hate goodbys, we needn’t suffer them with any movie characters we liked even a little bit in the last couple of years. This year we’ll see: “Stakeout II,” “That’s Entertainment III,” “Wayne’s World 2,” “Friday the 13th: Jason Goes to Hell,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III,” “Son of the Pink Panther,” “The Addams Family 2,” “Hot Shots! Part Deux,” “Weekend at Bernie’s 2” and “Sister Act II” with Whoopi Goldberg filling in for Barbara Hershey.

There are five upcoming movies based on old television shows, one based on the characters in a video game and five remakes. I am most upset about the remake of “The Incredible Journey” because the definitive version has already been made. After the past few weeks, the drought may be officially over, but the creativity shortage in Hollywood has reached dangerous proportions.

I think writers must go to the studios with original ideas sometimes and the studio suit says, “What’s it based on?”

“It’s not based on anything. I thought it up,” the writer proudly replies.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I made it up.”

“Come on, I’m a busy man, stop kidding around. It must be based on something--a book, a comic, a commercial, a breakfast cereal--something.”

“The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” remake is even listed with “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” as a tentative title. Somehow I think when a guy with a straw hat floating on the Mississippi calls his buddy “Huck,” it’s gonna ring a bell to the real hardcore film buffs.

Some stuff appears to be original. “Free Willy,” about a young boy who befriends an orca whale at an aquatic park and returns him to sea at great personal risk--we’ve never seen that before. There was that one “Star Trek” movie where they rescued a whale, but it’s not like every whale-rescue movie is the same, I’ll grant you that.

Based on the preview, I couldn’t think of a precedent for “Indecent Proposal” either. I’m inclined to give the writer total credit for the idea. I saw the previews a couple of times, so I’m now glad to have read something that told me what it was about. (I didn’t get the preview. It’s only one scene and it’s very dark, so maybe I misunderstood, but it appeared to be a couple having sex on top of a bunch of money on a bed--every cashier’s nightmare--with voiceover narration. I kept expecting at least one of the people in bed to sit up, peel a buck off their sweaty back, go to the door and yell, “Shut up, we’re trying to have sex in here on top of this money on this bed!”)

If they weren’t re-releasing the original, perfect “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” I’d have nothing to look forward to.

* KEEP ON TURNING . . . No, it’s not over yet. SNEAKS ’93 has an annex and it’s on Page 28.