The Screenwriter’s Package : Even Showgirls Get the Blue (Treatment)

Hollywood SAT question: Disney is to G-rated movies as screenwriter Joe Eszterhas is to (fill in the blank)?

(Clues: Eszterhas wrote “Basic Instinct” and “Sliver.”)

Now comes the third in a series of sexually explicit scripts, “Showgirls.” At least it reads that way.

Eszterhas’ ICM agent, Guy McElwaine, calls the story, which sold for $2 million, “a kind of ‘Last Tango in Paris’ for the ‘90s.” Others say it’s a dirtier version of “Flashdance” with a typical Eszterhas last-minute twist.

One studio executive called it “pornographic” and “misogynistic.”

“Showgirls” is being touted by producers Mario Kassar and Ben Myron as a rock ‘n’ roll musical set in Las Vegas. But this ain’t no “Show Boat.”

The Times was faxed a copy of certain scenes that have offended some female executives in town. Sample:

Tony (described as a good-looking producer in his mid-40s): “Put her in the show! She’s better than the monkeys!”

Here’s the plot: Nomi, a 19-year-old newly arrived in Sin City, has dreams of becoming a dancer in “Passion,” a nightly musical revue on the strip’s Desert Grove. Instead, she takes a lowlier job “lap dancing” (an adult amusement where a woman takes off her clothes and “dances” in a customer’s lap) at a place called Zip City, for the money. Later, she reveals her true colors as a schemer bent on replacing Cristal, the star of “Passion.”

McElwaine assures that according to Eszterhas’ research, “lap dancing” exists in Vegas.

Carolco Pictures reportedly outbid two other production companies last week for “Showgirls,” agreeing to put up an estimated $29 million for the project, which reunites the “Basic Instinct” team of Eszterhas and director Paul Verhoeven. “Instinct” was a controversial film that generated considerable criticism from gay organizations--and $350 million in grosses worldwide.

“Showgirls” assuredly will test the ratings board’s standards for what constitutes an NC-17-rated movie. Verhoeven is guaranteed complete creative license, whether NC-17 or lower-rated. (The company declined to comment for this story.)

Meanwhile, Carolco’s distribution deal is with MGM, which may or may not want to distribute an NC-17-rated picture considering the financial risk, which the struggling company can ill-afford to take. And controversy is no guarantee for ticket sales, as MGM’s disastrous “Body of Evidence,” starring Madonna, proved.

MGM’s chairman Frank Mancuso was in Europe and unavailable to comment.

But the head of production at a competing studio, who read Eszterhas’ script and liked it, said he may want to distribute the if MGM passes, with one proviso: “It would have to be very good because no matter how good it is, you’ll earn a lot less money (with an NC-17).”

And what about that much talked-about Eszterhas script “Layers of Skin,” about a lesbian cop on the trail of a killer in Palm Springs? It has never been written, McElwaine said.*