Ready or Not, We Need That Movie--Now! : Film: Directors complain that studios’ release demands often cut into crucial post-production.

Art and commerce have always been on a collision course. And in an intensely competitive movie marketplace, the former is increasingly sacrificed for the latter.

Two days after the cameras stopped rolling on “Die Hard 2,” recalls Renny Harlin, his director’s cut was due. And, in only eight weeks, the $50 million vehicle on which 20th Century Fox had pinned its 1990 summer hopes, was supposed to hit the screens.

“After the first preview, Barry Diller said to me ‘There’s a real good movie somewhere in there,’ ” Harlin recalls, referring to the former Fox chairman. “I thought so too. It always haunted me that, with enough time to distance myself from the material and try different things, I could have done more. It’s completely wrong that, in so many cases, the last part of the filmmaking process is robbed from the director because of the demands of the release schedule. This has become an artistic issue for many of us.”

With good reason, since last-minute scheduling changes and the desire to milk the peak moviegoing seasons of summer and Christmas make curtailed post-production periods a fact of Hollywood life.

Add to this the high cost of interest payments on a $50 million film and the inability of studios to make pictures happen on cue as did the moguls of yore, and it’s no wonder that so many filmmakers have been racing the clock--editing footage, mixing dialogue, adding music and special effects--in a time frame considerably tighter than the 20-25 week norm.

Warners’ “The Fugitive” and “Demolition Man” went down to the wire and, to make its Dec. 17 opening, “The Pelican Brief” had to make due with only 10 weeks of post-production. Disney’s “Tombstone” is pressing hard to make its holiday release date as is its “Sister Act 2.” Paramount’s “Sliver,” “Indecent Proposal” and “The Firm” were on short post-production periods since incoming studio chief Sherry Lansing needed the product fast. And Columbia--which spared no expense in rushing the ill-fated “Last Action Hero” to the screen--is now watching Walter Hill dart to the finish line with “Geronimo: An American Legend.”

The clash between “show” and “business” was never so evident, says producer Bob Gale, as when his “Back to the Future II” scrambled to fulfill commitments to toy makers and fast-food outlets.

“We had to tell the studio by a certain date whether we would be delivering the film at the appointed time,” he recalls. “If we couldn’t, we’d blow off Pizza Hut. If we delivered, they’d be paying several million dollars for the chance to hand out sunglasses. A movie is no longer just a movie but a way of selling promotional tie-ins, cutting record deals, filling the talk show circuits. The good news is that art manages to thrive anyway.”

Short post-production periods affect not only the movies themselves, but marketing and publicity, as well. It’s difficult to come up with movie trailers and an ad campaign solely on the basis of “dailies.” And equally so--especially on low-profile films with no big stars--to secure press coverage if no film is available to be shown.

Though the studios acknowledge that the situation is far from ideal, their sympathy is often qualified.

“In a perfect world, we’d all like regular schedules,” says one high-powered executive. “No one likes a suicide mission in order to make a date. But directors never turn over a movie--you have to wrest it from them. Because their child is never really ‘perfect,’ they don’t want to let it out into the world. What’s needed is a happy medium.”

Where the line should be drawn, of course, is a matter of debate. Straightforward comedies or dramas without complicated action sequences and special effects require far less time to edit and mix than an “Indiana Jones” or a “Star Wars.” Directorial style also enters in. Two years of pre-planning cut down the time it took Steven Spielberg to pull together the technically complex “Jurassic Park.” Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford edited in the camera--shooting only what they knew was needed.

Under the Directors Guild contract, a director has 10 weeks to present the studio with a cut. Should an emergency arise making it necessary for the studio to distribute the film earlier, however, this period may be reduced. As of July, the guild has the right to be informed upfront about the length of the post-production period--which it hopes will avoid placing the filmmaker in a squeeze.

Much ado about nothing, maintains film critic Richard Schickel. “In the old days, many directors were off shooting their next project during post-production and never even entered the editing room,” he observes. “But guys these days want to hover over a film. Lengthier post-production periods, like big budgets and long running times, make them feel that they are more important. A lot of it boils down to creative ego.”

Not so, responds Walter Hill, whose famed post-production skills were honed on “The Warriors” and “Another 48 HRS.”: “This is not an industry without ego. But not all of us have the temperament and the technical ability to plunge into tight post-production feeling confident our film won’t be hurt. Many directors legitimately come to conclusions about what their movie is about quite slowly.”

Gus Van Sant, whose “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” was just pushed back to February to permit further fine-tuning, is a case in point. It takes six months of trial and error before he’s able to “find” his film, he admits. Michael Mann (“Last of the Mohicans”), who demanded 26 weeks to deliver his director’s cut of “Manhunter,” on a big picture likes two or three months more for the technical end.

“Everything on the shoot is just raw material,” Mann asserts. “A motion picture is basically made in the editing room, and it’s not wise to shortcut this process.”

Still, “Fugitive” director Andrew Davis believes that the short turnaround may have benefited his film. “Having only eight weeks probably sharpened my focus,” he says. “And the pace at which we were forced to shoot and cut, I think, injected additional energy into the picture. Though I wouldn’t recommend it as a way to work, studios are looking for directors who can deliver this way.”

Davis had a rough cut ready to screen 2 1/2 weeks after the wrap party--with considerable help from seven editors, 21 assistants and the rental of a pricey, high-tech editing machine. But such stop-gap support, argues Harlin, is no substitute for the normal creative process.

“The studio philosophy is that if you throw enough people and money at a movie you can pull it together fast,” he says. “But there’s a big difference between hiring 20 people for 100 days and hiring 100 people for 20 days. You can’t have too many cooks in the kitchen. And making a movie is not like building a machine--you need time to reflect.”

Studios are becoming aware, however, that no one wins if the film doesn’t work. Columbia gave Martin Scorsese and Mike Nichols additional time to get “The Age of Innocence” and “Wolf” to their liking. Poor test screenings caused the studio to push back James L. Brooks’ “I’ll Do Anything” from holiday time to February.

“People are realizing that if a picture is good, it doesn’t matter when it’s released--and that if it’s not good, it also doesn’t matter,” a Paramount insider says. “ ‘Demolition Man’ had a huge opening in October. ‘Indecent Proposal,’ which took in $152 million worldwide, opened in April. This is now a 12-month-a-year business.”

Columbia learned that lesson the hard way. Working nonstop to get “Last Action Hero” out in early June, they admit, was a dubious decision, in retrospect.

“If we had another month, we could have delivered a better version of the movie,” says one high-placed studio executive. “But we had the T-shirts, we were up on the billboards, we locked ourselves in. We were afraid that if we moved the date people would read even greater problems into it. We let the release date take precedence over the movie. That won’t happen again.”