MOVIES - March 5, 1994

Howard to Shoot the ‘Moon’: Ron Howard will direct Imagine Films’ tentatively titled movie “Lost Moon.” It’s based on the true story and upcoming non-fiction book by astronaut James A. Lovell Jr. and Jeffrey Kluger about the near disastrous 1970 Apollo 13 moon mission that went awry when a small explosion inside the capsule occurred just outside the Earth’s orbit. Tom Hanks is expected to star as Lovell, who was the commander of the Apollo crew. Howard’s Imagine partner Brian Grazer will produce the movie, which begins production in July.

* The Latest on ‘List’: “Schindler’s List” has attracted attention on two international fronts. About 500 filmgoers were evacuated when an anonymous caller threatened to set off a bomb at a premiere of the Holocaust film in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, police said Friday. A bomb squad found no explosives in the city center cinema, where Karlsruhe’s mayor and city council members were attending the showing Thursday night. Meanwhile, the Philippine government Friday overturned its own censor’s decision to cut sex scenes from director Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated drama and ordered it to be shown in its entirety.

* Erasing Box-Office Doubts: If everything goes as 20th Century Fox suspects, “Mrs. Doubtfire” will cross into the $200-million box-office stratosphere this Sunday. “We never thought it would get to this,” said Fox executive Vice President Tom Sherak. “These kinds of movies are like shooting stars and every studio hopes for them.” At $200 million, “Mrs. Doubtfire” will become 1993’s second-highest-grossing film (trailing “Jurassic Park”) and the 16th highest of all time in the United States and Canada.

* Full ‘Disclosure’: Demi Moore will co-star opposite Michael Douglas in “Disclosure,” a Warner Bros. film based on the Michael Crichton novel about sexual harassment, according to trade reports. Moore will play an executive charged with sexual harassment by a male co-worker who also happens to be her ex-lover. The studio would not confirm the casting on Friday.

POP MUSIC

Janet’s New Dates: New dates have been set for Janet Jackson’s three concerts at the Forum, which were postponed due to the singer’s upper respiratory infection. Tickets for the show originally scheduled for Friday night now will be honored on April 7; tickets for the show scheduled tonight will be honored April 9 and tickets for Monday’s postponed show will be honored April 10. Refunds also can be obtained at point of purchase. New dates have not been announced for a show that was scheduled for Tuesday at the San Diego Sports Arena.

THE ARTS

Streisand Auction: A Christie’s New York auction of 20th-Century decorative and fine arts from Barbra Streisand’s collection on Thursday brought in $5.77 million in sales--well above the $4-million estimate--and set a record for artist Tamara de Lempicka. “Adam and Eve,” Lempicka’s stylized painting of a nude couple in the Garden of Eden, valued at $600,000 to $800,000, was sold to an anonymous private collector for $1.98 million. A Tiffany “Cobweb” lamp was expected to command the auction’s highest price of $800,000 to $1 million, but an unidentified buyer snapped it up for a mere $717,500.

TELEVISION

Rumor Mill: Elizabeth Taylor’s attorney denied rumors circulating around Hollywood this week that his client has agreed to star in a new TV series called “Daughters of Eve.” “There’s been no commitment by either side. She hasn’t given her consent for anything except that she will talk (with Paramount),” said Neil Papiano. Paramount also released a statement this week saying: “We are internally developing a project with international scope and designing it with the hope that Elizabeth Taylor would star in it.” The prime-time series, to be shot partly in London and Paris, reportedly would star Taylor as the wealthy matriarch of a high-society family.

STAGE

And the Winner Is . . .: Cecilia Fannon has won the $5,000 top prize in South Coast Repertory’s sixth annual California Playwrights Competition for “Green Icebergs,” a comic drama about modern sexual manners. That makes two SCR awards in a row for Fannon, 43, of Newport Beach. Last year she won second prize for “To Distraction.” This year the $3,000 second prize went to David Ford, a Bay Area director and performance artist, for “Too Good to Be True,” about employees of an AIDS charity.

* ‘Damn Yankees’ Goes to Bat: Most of the New York critics liked Jack O’Brien’s staging of “Damn Yankees,” which has moved from San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre to Broadway, but David Richards of the New York Times didn’t join the celebration. “It was never exactly a classic musical, just a loud and flashy one,” he wrote, and he dismissed the efforts of the new leads, Victor Garber and Bebe Neuwirth. Still, Linda Winer of Newsday found it “an enormously appealing, sweet and foolish trifle that wears its age as proudly as a piece of pop art,” the New York Post said the revival “hit a home run,” and the Daily News called it “a jolt that seems alternately ridiculous and refreshing.”