Cutting Room Corral : Movies: The release of ‘Even Cowgirls Get the Blues’ has been pushed back to allow director Gus Van Sant to re-edit it.

Even directors get the blues.

Responding to the cool reception and critical reviews his new movie received at the recent Venice and Toronto film festivals, director Gus Van Sant is going back to the drawing board to re-edit his screen adaptation of Tom Robbins’ ‘70s cult novel “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.”

The film’s marketer and distributor, Fine Line Features, has agreed to push back the release date to the first quarter of next year from the original Nov. 3 opening.

“What Gus has expressed to us in terms of what he feels will help the movie is completely in sync with our feelings,” said Fine Line president Ira Deutchman. “It seems like the right course of action to put off the release and allow him to do this.”

Van Sant--who was under pressure to complete his film in time for the fall festivals--said that after seeing “Cowgirls” play for the first time in front of audiences and getting such negative response, he realized it had problems with “pacing and construction of the story.”

Based on Robbins’ 1976 offbeat hippie novel, “Cowgirls” is billed as a psychedelic road movie exploring sexual identity and social discovery. The story centers on a counterculture heroine named Sissy Hankshaw who becomes the world’s greatest hitchhiker because of her oversized thumbs and the rebel band of cowgirls she befriends at a ranch run by lesbians. The ensemble cast features Uma Thurman, John Hurt, Rain Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Lorraine Bracco, Angie Dickinson, Crispin Glover, Ed Begley Jr. and Carol Kane.

In a phone interview from his home in Oregon, Van Sant (“Drugstore Cowboy,” “My Own Private Idaho”) said he found after the two festival screenings he attended “the overall response wasn’t as good as I thought--it was critical.” He determined that “the pacing could be improved--in parts it’s too slow, and other times too fast.”

The writer-director said it would be “too complicated” to detail how he expects to re-edit his picture, particularly since most decisions will be made during the process, but he does not plan to make any major changes. “The whole thing is I want to re-evaluate it. It’s an opportunity to react to feedback,” said Van Sant, noting, “I like the whole movie, but I can see it in the other light too.”

Van Sant admitted being upset with the negative response, which he said he didn’t see coming.

“Everyone liked the movie within our creative group, all parties were really happy with it and no one said it needed work. No red flags went up. It wasn’t until we had a chance to see it with an audience that we first heard feedback and got a different response than what we thought,” he said.

In retrospect, the filmmaker said he wished Fine Line had test-marketed the movie prior to its festival debuts. Deutchman disagrees. “I actually think that for the kind of film it is, traditional test marketing doesn’t tell you enough,” he said. “For a film like this, a festival screening is much more telling than a test audience. Films that aren’t high concept generally don’t test well, so I’m not sure we would have learned that much more earlier.”

Van Sant said he does not expect to reshoot any scenes or film new footage. Rather, he’ll look to the cutting room floor. “There is a lot of stuff that wasn’t in the movie that could go back in,” he said. The movie currently plays at 1 hour, 45 minutes.

The filmmaker lauded Fine Line for allowing him the time and money to go back and re-edit. “I wouldn’t do it if Fine Line didn’t want me to or wouldn’t fund it.”

The movie, jointly financed by Fine Line and Fine Line parent subsidiary New Line International, was delivered at a budget of $9 million. Deutchman said the added cost to the production would be minimal--”a maximum of a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

Deutchman said the company had only just begun its advertising campaign, so not a lot of money was wasted. “We’re looking at it philosophically as pre-opening advertising that will increase the awareness of the film,” said Deutchman.

In addition, trailers have been playing with the original release dates for the movie--Nov. 3 for exclusive runs in Los Angeles and New York and Nov. 12 for a wider release of 450 prints. Deutchman said an AIDS benefit premiere planned for Oct. 26 in L.A. and Oct. 28 in New York had to be canceled as well as a number of planned press screenings.

Deutchman said the film is being sold as “an offbeat comedy.” He believes that for those who have read Robbins’ book, the movie would be “an easy sell.” But “the focus of our campaign is to reach people who’ve heard of the book but not necessarily have read it,” he said.

The book’s author, Tom Robbins, saw the movie at the Toronto festival. “I liked it inasmuch as I was able to,” Robbins told The Times, explaining that it was hard for him to be objective “not because it was based on material I created,” but because he had spent time on the movie’s set and consequently found it difficult to “suspend disbelief” in seeing it translated to the screen. Robbins said whether Van Sant remained true to his book “was never an issue.” He added, “I think it’s a mistake when a filmmaker tries to adapt a book too literally.”

The author said Van Sant “was much truer to the book than I would have been.”

Van Sant said that while his movie is “a lot different” from the book, “I tried to stick to the spirit of the novel.”

“Cowgirls,” produced by Laurie Parker, had a long transition to the big screen. First planned as Van Sant’s first major studio release, the movie was originally set up at TriStar Pictures. But studio management, whose priority was to get more mainstream, high-concept movies going, got cold feet and ultimately put the picture into “turnaround.” Fine Line acquired the project from TriStar in the spring of 1992. Its release was first delayed this past April when Grammy-winning musician k.d. lang agreed to produce the soundtrack.