When Castle Rock Met Ted Turner . . . : The Industry: Financed by Turner’s deep pockets, the studio will double its film output in the next few years, but it will not give up creative autonomy, according to Martin Shafer, one of its founders.

Castle Rock Entertainment, already one of Hollywood’s healthiest independents, is poised to take advantage of the deep pockets of Ted Turner, who is expected to buy the company by Thanksgiving. Turner is looking for the deal to further build his global entertainment empire, with his ultimate goal to control all distribution rights to major motion pictures and TV programming.

The partners of the Beverly Hills-based boutique, responsible for such hits as “In the Line of Fire,” “City Slickers,” “A Few Good Men” and “When Harry Met Sally. . . ,” have been assured the same creative autonomy they have known since founding the film and television company six years ago.

However, Hollywood has been speculating that Turner will play a role in determining which films will be made once Turner Broadcasting System, in which Time Warner and TCI are also partners, becomes the new owner. With the combined $600-million-plus acquisitions of both Castle Rock and New Line Cinema (to be complete by year end), Turner has been dubbed the newest movie mogul on the Hollywood block.

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But movie division chief Martin Shafer, one of Castle Rock’s five founding partners, insists the company will keep its creative control.

“For an independent-minded company like ours, creative autonomy was first on our list when we made the deal with Turner,” Shafer said. “When we started the company six years ago, it was first on our list, so clearly we’re not going to give that up now.” In fact, Shafer said, Turner was the first to assure the Castle Rock team, “ ‘You guys are doing a great job; why would I want to interfere?’ ”

Under the deal’s more formal structure, Shafer and his partners--director-actor Rob Reiner, managing partner Alan Horn, producer-director Andrew Scheinman and TV division head Glenn Padnick--will assume titles, which none currently has. The partners, who currently own a combined 41% of Castle Rock (Sony owns 44% and Westinghouse Electric, 15%), have signed seven-year management contracts.

While Turner is a big movie fan whose input will naturally be welcomed, Shafer said (“he’s a visionary, we’d be pretty stupid not to listen”), any pet project of his would be done under the auspices of Turner Pictures Worldwide, a division of TBS. Turner Pictures will continue to create original programming for cable TV (“Zelda,” “Gettysburg”), and beef up its feature division and make four to six theatrical releases a year (“Tom & Jerry: The Movie” and the upcoming “The Pagemaster,” starring Macaulay Culkin).

Turner was out of the country and unavailable for comment.

“Ted’s plan is to have a full-fledged media empire,” Shafer said. “There will be five or six global giants, of which Turner will be one.” To that end, Turner will look to companies like Castle Rock, New Line and Turner Pictures (and possibly other acquisitions) to create A-level movies with major stars to add to his existing library, which currently includes the MGM catalogue, and to be broadcast on his various media outlets, like TNT, as well as other cable and network channels.

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With access to TBS’ deeper pockets, Castle Rock plans to double the five or six movies a year it currently produces over the next four years. It expects to make six films next year, eight the following year, 10 in 1996 and 12 in 1997. The long-term plan is “to build our company up slowly and hopefully be a brand-name studio someday,” Shafer said.

Up until now, Castle Rock--which has produced 20 movies since 1989, 14 of which have been released--has relied on outside production financing, while paying its own marketing costs and distribution fees to Columbia Pictures to release its movies. When its long-term domestic distribution deal with Columbia expires at the end of 1997, Castle Rock plans to self-release its movies in the United States and Canada.

The question of foreign distribution is still being decided. Castle Rock will either form its own international distribution operation (like the studios) and release its pictures directly overseas or sell off rights territory by territory to local distributors.

“We’re analyzing the marketplace overseas, but clearly Ted’s (future) plan is to control worldwide rights in all media,” Shafer said. “The idea is to control distribution and maximize income on each movie in all media.”

Because it did not own foreign rights to its recent hits, “In the Line of Fire” and “A Few Good Men,” Castle Rock forfeited “a tremendous amount of money.” Those two films are expected to gross about $100 million apiece overseas in theatrical markets alone. Under Castle Rock’s current foreign distribution deal with New Line, there are only two new pictures left to be released.

Castle Rock also plans to direct more advertising dollars to Turner-affiliated outlets. “We spend $100 million in media buying a year. Why wouldn’t we want that money to go to a TBS, TNT, CNN or Hanna-Barbera rather than the competition?” Shafer said. Similarly, Castle Rock is in the process of making a deal with actor John Malkovich to star and direct a TNT movie about Howard Hughes.

Castle Rock’s next two firm feature projects for ’94 are “Beyond Rangoon,” to be directed by John Boorman and to star Patricia Arquette, and “Delores Claiborne,” based on a Stephen King novel, which will star Kathy Bates (who rose to movie fame in Castle Rock’s “Misery”).

“Beyond Rangoon” is an adventure drama about a young woman on vacation in Burma who finds herself caught up in the midst of a political uprising. She befriends a group of rebels fighting for democracy, helping them to escape to freedom. The film, to be produced by Barry Spikings and Eric Pleskow, will be shot in Malaysia.

“Delores Claiborne,” a mother-daughter drama written by Tony Gilroy, will feature Bates as a sharp-tongued housekeeper in a tiny Maine town who turns a police murder interrogation into a confessional, refuting charges that she has killed her shrewish employer but revealing how she came to murder her incestuous husband 20 years ago. The project is out to directors.

Alec Baldwin, currently in Castle Rock’s “Malice,” will star in “Bodies Electric,” about an aspiring corporate executive who blows his high-powered career after becoming involved with a lower-class woman with a violent ex-husband and discovering that the world is indifferent to human suffering, particularly his.

Rob Reiner’s next likely project is tentatively titled “The President Elopes,” in which Robert Redford is set to star (and produce) as a recently widowed U.S. President who discovers the difficulties of conducting his personal life while doing the most public job in the world. “City Slickers” star Billy Crystal, whom the partners affectionately call a Castle Rock “family member,” will star in another, yet-to-be-determined comedy next year that he will write with frequent collaborators Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel.

Castle Rock’s upcoming releases include “City Slickers II,” due Memorial Day weekend, and Rob Reiner’s “North,” which stars Elijah Wood.

Castle Rock: Domestic Box Office

Title Release Date Gross “A Few Good Men” December, 1992 $142 million “City Slickers” June, 1991 $124 million “In the Line of Fire”* July, 1993 $105 million “When Harry Met Sally...” July, 1989 $93 million “Misery” November, 1990 $62 million “Malice”* October, 1993 $40.5 million “Honeymoon in Vegas” August, 1992 $36 million “Sibling Rivalry” October, 1990 $18 million “Needful Things”* August, 1993 $15.4 million “Lord of the Flies” March, 1990 $15 million “Mr. Saturday Night” September, 1992 $15 million “Amos & Andrew” March, 1993 $10 million “Late for Dinner” September, 1991 $10 million “Year of the Comet” April, 1992 $3 million

Total Box-Office Gross to Date: $688.9 million

* Denotes films still in release

Source: Castle Rock Entertainment

Coming Up From Castle Rock

Project (and Players): Release Date

“Josh and S.A.M.”: Nov. 24 Starring Martha Plimpton, Jacob Tierney and Noah Fleiss

“City Slickers II”: Memorial Day Weekend Starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Jon Lovitz, Jack Palance

“North”: June 24 Directed by Rob Reiner, starring Elijah Wood

“Little Big League”: July Directed by Castle Rock partner Andrew Scheinman

“Barcelona”: Fall, 1994 Written and directed by Whit Stillman

“Rita Hayworth & the Shawshank Redemption”: Fall, 1994 Starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins