A look inside Hollywood and the movies : Action-Filled Agenda for Gale Anne Hurd

Under her new non-exclusive deal at Paramount Pictures, producer Gale Anne Hurd is developing two big action-adventure movies, and, outside that genre and studio, she’s working on a small family drama that will mark the movie debut of acclaimed stage director Robert Allen Ackerman.

Hurd--who over the past decade has carved out a name for herself in the male-dominated action-adventure movie genre producing such films as “Aliens,” “The Terminator” and “The Abyss”--has sold Paramount a pitch she developed with the writer-producer team of Michael Beckner and Jim Gorman for a movie titled “Firestorm.”

Hurd describes it as “like ‘The Guns of Navarone’ set in the burning oil fields of Kuwait.” A ragtag group of American soldiers led by a maverick Army major go on a suicide mission to rescue refugees behind the enemy lines of Iraq.

Another high-priority project Hurd is developing for Paramount at her Santa Monica-based production company Pacific Western (which moves to the studio’s Hollywood lot in February) is “Global PD (Police Department).”

The futuristic story, currently being written by Richard Outten (“Pet Sematary”), deals with an elite global police force headed by an ex-cop who is brought back out of retirement to solve an international crime and track down his arch nemesis.

According to Hurd, Outten is rewriting his script, which was originally set up at Warner Bros. “We’ve basically started over,” contends Hurd, adding, “We changed the plot and the characters. . . . Although I liked the arena, the story was not very emotionally involving.”

The producer just wrapped another futuristic action tale, “The Penal Colony,” which follows the story of a Marine captain convicted and imprisoned in a state-of-the-art maximum security penitentiary. After fighting back against a ruthless warden, he is banished to a primitive penal colony island controlled by violent outcasts. Hurd said she will finish post-production on “Penal” in December for release in late spring or early summer through Savoy Pictures. The $21-million movie was funded independently through executive producer Jake Eberts’ Allied Films.

In addition to the bigger-budgeted action-adventure movies, Hurd continues to pursue the more moderately priced, intimate personal dramas, of which “Safe Passage,” to be directed by Ackerman, is the latest.

Ackerman, whose most recent production was “Scenes From an Execution” at the Mark Taper Forum, has directed such New York and London plays as “Salome” with Al Pacino, “Burn This” starring John Malkovich, “Extremities” with Susan Sarandon and Farrah Fawcett, “Bent” with Richard Gere and “Our Town” starring Alan Alda.

The producer said negotiations are currently under way with New Line Cinema, which was just purchased along with Castle Rock Entertainment by cable magnate Ted Turner, to finance and distribute the movie. Hurd hopes the movie will go before the cameras early next year.

Based on a novel by Ellyn Bache and a screen adaptation by Deena Goldstone, the story is about a woman in her 40s who is the mother of seven sons, one of whom is involved in an explosion while on duty with the Marines in the Middle East. The members of the family come together for three days as they await news of his fate. “It’s about the tapestry of being a family and how the siblings and husband and wife interrelate and confront a personal tragedy,” explains Hurd, calling it “one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read.”

Hurd added that “the lead character, a woman (the mother), comes to terms with choices she’s made in her life to be a mother.” She said it addresses the issue of women “who rush around and feel we can only be defined by our profession.”

When asked if the story hits home with her, Hurd, who is also the mother of a nearly 2-year-old daughter, Lolita (named after Hurd’s mother), conceded, “yes.”

Hurd, who still has a handful of projects set up at her former home, Universal Pictures, as well as other studios including TriStar and Disney, says she is looking forward to making films for Paramount and working with studio chairman Sherry Lansing.

“We really got to know each other during the process of meeting to work on a more formal basis,” said Hurd, noting, “She understands the concerns of a filmmaker and she also has a great deal of respect for producers which is something in very short supply these days.”