A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : ‘SLIVER’ UPDATE : It’s a Tough Job Fine-Tuning Those Sex Scenes

Will the new Sharon Stone sizzler “Sliver” be hotter or cooler than expected? Will it slither into movie theaters on May 21 with a lot of attention . . . or arrive at the last minute?

Well, one thing’s for sure: The movie’s producer, Paramount Pictures, brought stars Stone, Billy Baldwin and Tom Berenger back last week to reshoot the steamiest of the steamy sex scenes. That means the filmmakers have one slim month to insert the new footage, order prints and screen the thriller for critics.

What we don’t know is what was wrong with the old scenes--a Paramount spokeswoman wouldn’t say. But there has certainly been disagreement about the artfulness of the certain camera angles on the lovers’ body parts in earlier footage. Among other couplings, there’s a particularly graphic scene where Stone and Baldwin writhe in front of a picture window in their high-rise Manhattan apartment building where the murders take place.

Apparently, the filmmakers just aren’t satisfied. Director Philip Noyce once promised in this space that audiences would see more male frontal nudity in this film than ever before in a studio-made (read: non-pornographic) movie. Weeks later, after a research screening was held on the Paramount lot, word leaked out that no significant revelations of the male anatomy were to be seen in the movie at all.