Columbia Tells Arnolds to Hit the Road

Tom and Roseanne Arnold can’t seem to get a break.

Following their flap with ABC over Tom Arnold’s “Jackie Thomas Show,” the couple hit a roadblock in their efforts to get their first movie together off the ground.

Columbia Pictures pulled the plug Monday on the Arnolds’ modestly budgeted road movie--sometimes referred to as “Thelma & Lou” or “Car Movie”--three weeks before it was to begin shooting.

Producers Ned and Nancy Tanen are hastily shopping the project to other studios, but the Arnolds’ agent, John Burnham of the William Morris Agency, said he doesn’t expect to have another deal by the end of the week.

A source close to the movie said Wednesday that the studio’s decision to back out was guided by concerns about the script as well as the limited amount of preparation time for the production, which was to be shot in four different states. “It’s very difficult to hit a target within a limited time frame. It’s even more difficult to hit a moving target,” the source said.

However, several industry sources claim that Columbia is financially drained and temporarily unable to get any projects off the ground until after revenues begin coming in from “Last Action Hero,” the ultra-costly Arnold Schwarzenegger action-fantasy the studio is rushing to complete for a June 18 nationwide opening.

Shooting was to have begun on the $16.5-million movie by June 15 and finish by Aug. 7, which is the time-off period that Roseanne Arnold has from her hit TV sitcom, “Roseanne.”

While the fate of the project is being decided, a crew of approx- imately 16 persons (including director Michael Lessick) is on the road somewhere between Iowa and Washington, “looking for locations and keeping in touch with the producers,” says a source close to the Tanens.

The Arnolds project seemed to many like a sensible option for Columbia--an amiable, bread-winning summer comedy. Burnham calls it “a blue-collar National Lampoon thing, like the Chevy Chase movies.” And it seemed like a perfect fit, given Canton’s fondness for broad-based “hook” movies with household-name stars.

The script has been co-written by Bob Comfort, Phoeff Sutton and the team of Jeff Reno and Ron Osborne (“The Hard Way,” “The Flintstones”).

The project was reportedly offered on Tuesday to Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox, Paramount, New Line Cinema, Universal and Walt Disney Studios.

If the Tanens can’t get the road movie set up elsewhere, the Arnolds may take another look at Warner Bros.’ “Trouble in Paradise,” a comedy about a bickering husband-and-wife talk-show duo. Warner Bros. was eager to lure the Arnolds onto the project until the Tanens announced their film. “Trouble in Paradise” was originally written by Kathy Cohen Kloves and rewritten by Rita Rudner and Martin Bregman (“Peter’s Friends”).