Navy Casts a Wary Eye at Disney’s ‘Tide’ : Movies: The Pentagon is reluctant to assist with production of a drama about a submarine mutiny, which it calls far-fetched and alarmist.

For Hollywood, a film about a mutiny on board a U.S. Trident nuclear submarine has all the earmarks of a box-office hit.

Indeed, “Crimson Tide,” starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman, seems such a sure bet that, with a projected production price tag of $50 million, it would be the biggest action film ever mounted by Walt Disney Studios under its Hollywood Pictures banner.

But for the Navy, the story about an armed confrontation by crew members on an American nuclear sub seems so far-fetched and alarmist that they are reluctant to assist in making the movie, which is scheduled to start shooting Aug. 1. And, Pentagon sources say, producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer are equally reluctant to change the script if it means toning down the drama.

Cmdr. Gary Shrout, the Navy’s liaison to Hollywood, says the chances of a mutiny on a Trident sub are “somewhat less than getting kidnaped by Martians.”

Scripted by Michael Schiffer and Quentin Tarantino, “Crimson Tide” revolves around the U.S. submarine Alabama, which receives a coded message to launch a preemptive strike after a renegade politician seizes military bases in Russia and threatens to attack America.

Phil Strub, the Defense Department’s senior liaison to Hollywood, said he hopes the Navy and producers can work out their differences.

“I have a feeling from the production company that they feel the impact of an armed confrontation on the sub is unacceptably lessened if it just becomes a contest of wills and a war of words,” he added. “By the same token, there is no question this armed mutiny is not going to make it in the Navy.”

The producers declined to be interviewed for this story, but Disney sources said the film would proceed without the military’s help if necessary.

To capture the realism of submarine life, a contingent of writers, producers and Disney executives took a short cruise late last year on the U.S. submarine Florida at the Trident training facility in Bangor, Wash. They visited the control room, mess decks, torpedo room and missile compartment and even observed a simulated nuclear missile launch that a participant said was “one of the scariest things ever.”

“They showed us exactly what steps are needed to be taken administratively--as well as messages and decoding--before missiles are launched,” said one source. “It’s a fascinating ritualized process in which two people have to hold the message, walk to the captain so that all eyes validate it, and by doing that, they ensure that it is accurate.”

Hollywood and the military have had a long and rich history of cooperation.

The Defense Department currently uses two criteria in determining whether to lend assistance on a film. First, it must provide the public with a better understanding of the military and, second, it should help in military recruitment and retention.

Last year the Army opened Fort Jackson, S.C., to director Penny Marshall for “Renaissance Man,” the Air Force supplied bases for the Clint Eastwood thriller “In the Line of Fire,” and the Marines supplied vertical takeoff and landing Harrier jets for this summer’s Arnold Schwarzenegger film, “True Lies.”

But there also are numerous scripts that don’t cut it with the Pentagon.

“When I get through reading a script, I ask myself, ‘What impression will a viewer have of the Marine Corps when he leaves the theater?’ ” said Lt. Col. Jerry Broeckert, the Marine Corps’ liaison to Hollywood. He added, however, that the Marines will lend support to a movie that has negative elements in it, “as long as they are handled the way we would handle them and they are resolved.”

One film that the Pentagon has declined to assist is “Major Payne,” a comedy starring Damon Wayans that began filming last week in Virginia. It’s about the Marine’s top combat killer who has to make a transition to private life.

“The show-stopper was that this guy was relentlessly negative,” Strub said, recalling the script he read. “He was abusive. He was a Neanderthal. He was outrageous. He had a shaved head and a gold front tooth with a diamond in it. Now, I can assure you, military regulations don’t allow that. We were encouraged to laugh at this guy’s deviant behavior.

“There is also a scene in which an Army colonel, whose son is in school, kidnaps a bunch of students and keeps them in an Army arsenal,” he added. “This is a completely unrealistic military portrayal.”

Producer Eric Gold contends the film “doesn’t denigrate the military at all.” In fact, he noted, while the colonel in question flips out, Wayans’ character is the one who “saves the day.”

“Are (Pentagon officials) saying no one freaks out, like at that Air Force base in Washington the other day (in which over two dozen people were shot)?” Gold asked. “Are they saying this doesn’t exist? Of course it exists.”

Another film that the military rejected is “Outbreak,” a Warner Bros. film about a deadly virus, which will star Dustin Hoffman, Morgan Freeman and Rene Russo.

The Defense Department objects to the plot because it depicts high-ranking military officers developing biological warfare weapons. Bio-warfare, Strub said, “was declared null and void during the Nixon Administration.”

Ironically, the Pentagon likely will provide locations and other assistance for a competing virus movie, “Crisis in the Hot Zone,” starring Robert Redford and Jodie Foster. The 20th Century Fox film is based on a true-life account of a deadly virus discovered in Maryland, in which Army personnel race to find its source.

Another project the Pentagon passed on is Paramount Pictures’ upcoming “Forrest Gump” starring Tom Hanks.

“We turned down ‘Forrest Gump,’ first, because it had an unrealistic Vietnam scene--Forrest was put into a platoon that consisted entirely of people like him,” said Army Lt. Col. Mitchell E. Marovitz. “And, second, there was an anti-war rally in which he was seen in uniform giving an anti-war speech.”