MGM, UA to Make 20 Pictures a Year, New Managers Promise : Movies: Proof is to emerge next spring with several releases. Top talent is involved.

In their first interviews together since they took over the troubled company this summer, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s new managers said Thursday that they are well on their way up to major-studio status.

Chairman Frank Mancuso pledged that production under the MGM and United Artists banners will be boosted from previous low levels to 20 pictures annually starting next year, with as many as eight more movies coming from Carolco Pictures and Polygram Filmed Entertainment.

Mancuso was joined by MGM Pictures President Michael Marcus and United Artists President John Calley, who said, “We’re not in here to try to put rouge on the corpse, strip some assets and get out.”

But MGM still faces a learning curve. Mancuso on Thursday morning led his staff through a discussion of the basics of film production and distribution.

Having the advice of Mancuso, a former head of Paramount Pictures, certainly couldn’t hurt. “Thelma & Louise” in 1991 was the studio’s last major hit. Bombs such as “Son of the Pink Panther” and “Meteor Man” have been more common.

Mancuso’s goal is to rebuild MGM so its owner, French bank Credit Lyonnais, can rid itself of the Santa Monica studio it unexpectedly acquired when former owner Giancarlo Parretti defaulted on loans.

MGM is entering a brief hiatus in releasing films, Mancuso said. Although its “Six Degrees of Separation” is now being rolled out amid favorable reviews, the next batch of movies won’t appear until spring, when moviegoers will finally start seeing the results of the Mancuso-Marcus-Calley regime. Another move coming is the hiring of a television president.

Marcus came to MGM from Creative Artists Agency, while Calley is a former Warner Bros. executive and producer. All three executives say MGM is no longer on the sidelines when top projects are shopped around. “It’s not just stuff coming out of people’s trucks. It’s the active projects. We’re involved in any bidding wars that are going on,” Marcus said.

Among the sought-after talent now working with MGM are actress Michelle Pfeiffer, director Chris Columbus (“Mrs. Doubtfire”) and screenwriter Ron Bass (“The Joy Luck Club” and “Rain Man”).

It doesn’t hurt that Marcus came to the job after working as a top agent at CAA, which also is advising Credit Lyonnais on what do with MGM. But the executives dismissed suggestions that CAA has unfair influence. They said it is working closely with all of the other agencies, among them CAA rival International Creative Management.

MGM recently enjoyed a windfall in the renewal of a pay TV deal with Showtime--worth perhaps $1 billion--in part because competition in that area has increased dramatically. Mancuso said the current intense competition justifies the French bank’s decision to hang on to MGM for now rather than liquidate it.