Some Meetings Call for Gorilla Tactics

The meeting of Viacom’s board of directors came to order and Paramount Pictures chief Sherry Lansing rose to speak.

“You all know about Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford,” Lansing told the executives, who had traveled to Hollywood for a business meeting and a chance to get a first-hand look at the studio that Viacom had won in a massive merger battle on Wall Street.

“And now, I want you to meet Paramount’s newest star,” Lansing continued.

With that, the door swung open and in stomped Amy--a gorilla.

Quicker than you could say King Kong, the board members straightened in their chairs and and exchanged startled looks as Amy roamed the room with her primitive eyes.

“OK, guys, she’s nervous around strangers, so be careful,” sources quoted Lansing as saying.

Then Stan Winston, the Oscar-winning visual effects wizard, appeared. As board members regrouped and began to inch nervously closer to the beast, sources recalled, some reached out to pet her.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Winston said ominously.

But within moments, the board realized what was happening. “Amy” was actually an electronically controlled gorilla created by Winston for Paramount’s action thriller “Congo,” which is to be released in June.

“They were all a little startled at first when Sherry brought a gorilla into the room,” recalled producer Kathleen Kennedy. But what better way was there, she added, to explain to Viacom’s board why the studio envisions “Congo” to be one of this summer biggest films.

The gorilla will be much more sophisticated than the E.T. character was in 1982, Kennedy said, because of advancements that have been made in technology.

Based on the Michael Crichton novel, “Congo” is the story of an expedition by members of a company called Travicom into the remote African jungle in search of the legendary lost city of Zinj and its fabled diamonds. The screenplay was written by Crichton and John Patrick Shanley and the movie is being produced by Kennedy and Sam Mercer and executive produced by Frank Yablans. Kennedy’s husband, Frank Marshall, is directing.

Hoping to create public awareness far ahead of the film’s summer release, Paramount has placed “teaser” posters in theaters depicting a close-up of a gorilla’s fearsome face, although studio spokesmen quickly point out that it isn’t a picture of Amy, but an artist’s early rendition.

The film has no major stars, so Paramount is banking on Amy--a creature whose facial expressions are electronically manipulated in almost life-like fashion--to become the true star. The poster, in fact, does not contain the names of any of the actors, although future ones will. The human actors include Dylan Walsh as primatologist Peter Elliot and Laura Linney as Travicom project supervisor Karen Ross.

And, in a clear sign that Paramount wants to position “Congo” as this summer’s monster movie--much like “Jurassic Park” was two years ago--the posters note that “Congo” comes “from the best-selling author of ‘Jurassic Park.’ ”

For weeks, Kennedy and Marshall have been working on two major productions at Sony Pictures’ Culver City lot. Besides “Congo,” which took up five large sound stages (the production is now on location in Costa Rica), their “The Indian in the Cupboard,” a joint venture of Paramount and Columbia Pictures, has also taken over five sound stages.

Directed by Frank Oz, “Indian” is the story of a boy whose miniature plastic Indian magically comes to life. The screenplay by Melissa Mathison is based on an award-winning novel by Lynne Reid Banks. The film stars Hal Scardino, Rishi Bhat, Litefoot, David Keith and Lindsay Crouse. Kennedy and Marshall are producing along with Jane Startz of Scholastic Productions. The film is executive produced by Bernie Williams, Robert A. Harris and Marty Keltz.

At one time late last year, Kennedy was overseeing three major movies all at once. In addition to “Congo” and “Indian,” she produced “The Bridges of Madison County” for Warner Bros. That film, starring Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep, was shot in Iowa with Eastwood directing. “Luckily, Clint was so fast he shot the movie in 37 days,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy said keeping track of “Congo” and “Indian” as they unfolded side by side wasn’t that difficult because they are distinctly different movies.

But the producers had once thought of playing a trick on director Oz, she added, by having the boy open the cupboard and having a gorilla jump out.