Fox’s Sizzling Summer Segues to a Winter of Discontent : Movies: After what’s shaping up as a difficult holiday season, 20th Century Fox is at a crossroads. Insiders wonder if the problems are temporary or longer term.

After a red-hot summer in which 20th Century Fox racked up a pair of $100-million-plus hits in “Speed” and “True Lies,” the studio has hit a wall.

The release of four consecutive box-office flops--”The Scout,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “The Pagemaster” and “Trapped in Paradise”--has raised questions in the industry as to whether the studio is merely the latest victim of a cyclical film business or proceeding on the wrong track.

Since his arrival in November, 1992, Fox Chairman Peter Chernin has embarked on an ambitious restructuring of the studio--creating a four-division system to fill the product pipeline, hiring Disney’s Bill Mechanic to serve as president of the company, and changing top management in the business, legal and international distribution departments.

Though company executives have high hopes for the first half of 1995, there are clouds on the horizon. Almost no movies have been set for the latter part of the year--and none is in place for the crucial Christmas holiday period. To complicate matters, there’s an unfilled void left by the departure of the company’s marketing head last September.

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“The next six to eight months are a crossroads for the studio,” says one insider. “They’ll either turn the corner or realize things aren’t working.”

One of the major conflicts revolves around Fox’s recent formation of a second film division designed to turn out mainstream movies. While Tom Jacobson had been the sole head of production, producer Laura Ziskin was brought aboard two months ago to run a similar movie unit. The move, studio officials explain, has a two-fold purpose: to increase the number of films and get a more varied slate from two distinctly differently personalities.

But, since Ziskin and Jacobson both have their own stable of producers, infighting and competition have set in.

“It’s an unwritten policy that Laura’s producers are Laura’s and Tom’s are Tom’s,” one insider says. “The factionalization is not only inefficient but a great source of frustration for producers on the lot.”

The studio’s other two recently formed divisions--Fox’s family division, headed by Christopher Meledandri, and Tom Rothman’s Fox Searchlight Pictures, handling “specialized,” or art house, films--are more clearly defined and therefore are not as likely to step on another division’s toes.

Ziskin, a former producer (“Pretty Woman,” “Hero”) who is a newcomer to the executive ranks, hopes to have four to six films underway within the next 18 months. Though she’ll try to steer clear of Jacobson, she admits that at times that might be tough. “The reality is, we have different tastes,” she says. “But that’s not to say we won’t make the same choices.”

Adds Jacobson: “There’s nothing that prevents anyone on the lot from working with anyone else. We’re doing our best to keep this collegial.”

Chernin declined to be interviewed for this story. But Mechanic took issue with the industry’s tendency to prejudge the multi-division strategy while it’s still in its infancy. Entertainment lawyer David Colden agrees. “It is too early to evaluate the four divisions, but the studio is in a growth mode with a very clear business plan.”

The success of Fox’s strategy is even more important given the studio’s erratic performance this year.

The studio gambled and won when it paired Keanu Reeves with first-time director Jan de Bont in the low-budget “Speed”--which became a summer sleeper and one of the year’s biggest movies. But, despite the fact that Jodie Foster in the upcoming “Nell” has been mentioned as a possible Oscar contender, much of the schedule was filled with a spate of high-concept, lowbrow comedies such as “Airheads,” “Baby’s Day Out” and “PCU,” none of which took off.

Movie choices, counters one top Fox executive, are always compromises. “Peter had to start from ground zero,” he says. “Only 60 projects were in development when he arrived. You do the best you can with what you have.”

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Though some see the hand of media mogul Rupert Murdoch--chief of Fox’s parent company, News Corp--in the studio master plan, Fox insiders insist that Murdoch only shows up on the lot one week a month and has little or nothing to do with the movie operation. “Rupert hasn’t read a script since I’ve been here,” says one.

Chernin concentrates on the creative end while studio president Mechanic focuses on home video and international sales. It is Chernin who has formal responsibility for “green lighting” a picture--but he never does so without soliciting the opinion of Mechanic.

Chernin and Mechanic are two different animals. If the affable Chernin is perceived as the “good cop,” Mechanic is often described as a bull in a china shop.

“Bill is a fierce competitor, capable of some pretty radical behavior in pursuit of his goals,” says a filmmaker who has observed him close-up.

Nowhere was this more evident than during Disney’s recent press junket for “The Santa Clause,” which turned into a fiasco when Mechanic decided to have some fun by placing promotional materials for Fox’s competing holiday release, “Miracle on 34th Street,” on the beds of visiting journalists. An angry Disney charged that the move was a violation of Hollywood etiquette--not to mention the hotel guests’ right to privacy.

The industry also raised its eyebrows at Mechanic’s wildly unorthodox money-back rebate intended to lure theatergoers in to see “Miracle”--an offer that only .5% took him up on.

Marketing, Fox admits, is a thorn in its side. After the department head, Andrea Jaffe, left in September, Chernin, Mechanic and executive vice president Tom Sherak had to pick up the slack.

“There’s a big void, which is causing the company major problems,” says one Fox insider. “This has led to a number of casualties--’Miracle on 34th Street’ among them. Though the movie scored well in theater exit polls, it was doomed by a soft, sentimental marketing campaign.”

Some raise the question, however, if better marketing could have saved “Miracle” or whether it, along with “The Scout,” “Trapped in Paradise” and “The Pagemaster” (a carry-over from former studio chief Joe Roth), was a bad idea from the start.

Fox’s 1995 slate looks stronger and more diverse. The summer brings Lawrence Kasdan’s romantic comedy “Paris Match,” starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline; Christopher Columbus’ “Nine Months” with Robin Williams and Hugh Grant; the third “Die Hard” installment, as well as the prospect of a major franchise in “The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

On tap for the spring, the studio has Barbet Schroeder’s dramatic thriller “Kiss of Death” (starring David Caruso and Nicolas Cage) and “A Walk in the Clouds,” a love story with Keanu Reeves.

One film that won’t be on the schedule is “Crisis in the Hot Zone.” Racing to hit the screen before Warner Bros.’ “Outbreak”--a competing film about a killer virus--the project fell through earlier this year when first Jodie Foster and then Robert Redford dropped out. The episode not only alienated director Ridley Scott, but cost European investors millions.

Deal-wise, however, the studio has made strides. Chernin has signed producers such as Lili and Richard Zanuck, as well as directors Christopher Columbus, John Woo and De Bont. And, Wesley Snipes, Meg Ryan, Sean Connery and Tom Hanks have been given first-look overall deals to develop material in which they could star.

For all its problems, Fox still has its supporters in Hollywood’s creative community.

“Last summer, Peter Chernin and Bill Mechanic were hailed as the Second Coming after the success of ‘Speed’ and ‘True Lies,’ ” says William Morris senior vice president Joan Hyler. “They’re still first-rate people buying first-rate projects. How quickly we forget.”