INDECENT PROPOSALS : When Once Is Rarely Enough

Creativity? It’s overrated in Hollywood--especially when you can ride the coattails of the dozen or so blockbusters that unreeled across the silver screen this year.

Just when parents were probably hoping they were seeing the end of the dinosaur craze, forget it. Steven Spielberg will undoubtedly be approached by Universal Pictures studio chief Tom Pollock about developing a sequel to the $800-million worldwide hit “Jurassic Park” later this year.

“There are any number of really good stories that could follow this film as a sequel,” says Pollock. But he concedes that it would probably be another three years before moviegoers could actually buy tickets.

“People were so amazed at what Steven was able to do with the first. Imagine where technology will be three years from now, that this will look so outdated. But it is something we would have to begin considering now,” he adds.

Already in the works at Warner Bros. is the second chapter of the sappy whale tale “Free Willy” and “Made in America II,” starring famous former couple Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg. That sequel, being produced by Arnon Milchan’s New Regency, is on target for next year or possibly 1995 (and was already on tap before the original was released) despite the couple’s recent breakup, Warners production executives insist.

Richard Benjamin’s romantic comedy was spun around a recently widowed black woman who wants to have children so she taps into the local sperm bank. When her daughter grows up and tries to find her father through the sperm bank, she discovers he’s a loud-mouth, moronic white used-car dealer hawking jalopies on cable TV. To date, that film has grossed nearly $45 million at U.S. theaters.

The sequel, like the one for “Free Willy,” is in the writing phase, but Warners is mum on other details. While the key cast are determined on “Made in America,” no decision has been made on the lead roles in “Free Willy.”

The second run on Simon Wincer’s family adventure of how a young boy befriends an angry, captive 7,000-pound orca and frees it is a definite go for ‘94, say Warners production and marketing sources. The picture has reeled in $76.3 million in box-office revenues to date.

Warners insiders say the studio has already talked to Lawrence Kasdan about writing a sequel to “The Bodyguard”--the Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston vehicle that grossed nearly $122 million at the U.S. box office. Kasdan, who is in Santa Fe shooting “Wyatt Earp,” also starring Costner, couldn’t be reached for comment. Warners sources expect the sequel to pop up in 1995.

Producer Arnold Kopelson says he’s been meeting with writers for a sequel on Warners’ biggest grosser of this year, “The Fugitive,” which has taken in $176 million.

“One of the problems is that we wrapped up the story so tightly, it’s going to be difficult to come up with something that will do justice to the first,” says Kopelson.

The film’s star, Harrison Ford, is currently shooting Paramount’s “Clear and Present Danger,” itself a follow-up to “Patriot Games.” Ford had said that if the first “Fugitive” was a hit, he would consider a second. He’s certainly no stranger to sequels: Consider his run with the “Star Wars” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” series.

You can nix any hopes of seeing a sequel to the absurd Columbia comedy “Groundhog Day,” even though the film grossed $70 million, say insiders. But the Columbia/Castle Rock $102-million hit thriller “In the Line of Fire,” starring Clint Eastwood, is primed for a sequel. Columbia sources say the possibility is being mulled over now.

TriStar, Columbia’s sister studio, said sequels for its 1993 winners “Sleepless in Seattle” ($122 million) and the Carolco-produced “Cliffhanger” ($84 million) are being considered. “It all depends simply on whether we can get good enough screenplays. Scripts for both are in the early development stages, but no production date is even being considered yet,” said a TriStar production executive.

Carolco wags say developing a sequel to the Sylvester Stallone starrer “Cliffhanger” has become just that--a cliffhanger. “Nothing has been ruled out,” says one top executive. Right now the only sequel in active development at the independent is “Total Recall II.” Then of course, there’s always plans for “Terminator 3.”

Last on the list is Paramount, which had two major hits this year: the enormously successful version of John Grisham’s “The Firm” ($156 million) and Adrian Lyne’s “Indecent Proposal” (nearly $107 million).

The jury’s still out on “Indecent Proposal,” but it’s highly unlikely “The Firm II” will ever see the light of day, say Paramount production insiders.

But stay tuned. It’s not likely that sequelitis is going away anytime soon.