Without Football, Big A Will Be a Star : Business: Hollywood taking advantage of vacancy with monthlong filming. Stadium hasn’t been hurt financially by loss of Rams.

With the Rams long gone, Jerome Bettis and Flipper Anderson won’t be seen around Anaheim Stadium this season.

But the Big A won’t be lacking in star power.

Actors Robert De Niro and Wesley Snipes will spend more than 30 days there during November and December filming “The Fan,” city officials said this week.

The Hollywood production will help fill the gap created by the Rams, who departed for St. Louis this spring. The St. Louis Rams open their season Sunday at Green Bay.

“This works out great because we don’t have anything as far as sports going on in the fall,” said Stadium General Manager Greg Smith. “We can afford to dedicate all of our time to the filming.”

The movie, in addition to three international soccer matches that have been scheduled in January, are helping to cushion the economic blow of losing the Rams to another city.

But the biggest financial boost comes from the Rams themselves, who must continue to pay off a $30-million debt service for Anaheim Stadium improvements made in 1980, amounting to about $2.5 million a year.

“With them leaving, it’s a positive cash situation of about $100,000 to $200,000 to the stadium,” Smith said. “The stadium will not lose money because the Rams are gone. The commitment we’ve made to the city is that the stadium will not be a burden to the taxpayers. It has not been nor will it be.”

But, Smith said, the team’s departure doesn’t take into account the economic impact to the community. The Rams typically played 10 games a season at the Big A, which presented a windfall for local restaurants, bars and hotels.

Still, the city has high hopes to attract another professional football franchise to Anaheim. Smith said he is keeping dates open on next year’s calendar just in case that happens.

“It’s a great sport and it ought to be in Anaheim,” he said. “There has been a lot of rhetoric about football in Hollywood Park or in the L.A. area, but I think people who are the key players in the business recognize that Anaheim is the preferred spot to play football.”

This fall’s football dates also had been kept vacant because there was talk of the Raiders possibly using the Big A for at least one season.

Smith would not discuss how much money the city would be paid for the filming of “The Fan” because negotiations are still in the final stages. But it will be the longest amount of time that a Hollywood production has used the stadium, which has become an increasingly popular filming venue.

“The stadium is going to double for Candlestick Park,” Smith said, laughing. “Every time they film something here, we’re supposed to be somewhere else.”

The Big A also has doubled for Miami’s Joe Robbie Stadium for a pretzel commercial and has even substituted for Dodger Stadium for the filming of a beer commercial.

The stadium still expects to play host to the Mickey Thompson stadium off-road race and a Supercross race--both in January--despite the promoters filing for bankruptcy liquidation in April, Smith said.

Both events typically draw more than 60,000 spectators, selling out the stadium.

“These events are too big not to be picked up by someone else,” Smith said.

City officials are also negotiating to build a state-of-the-art baseball stadium for the Angels and have discussed renovating Anaheim Stadium for football-only purposes. A factor in the Rams’ decision to leave was the city’s refusal to build them a new stadium.

Negotiations between the Angels and the city have been stalled with the Walt Disney Co.’s partial purchase of the team. If Disney is not interested in a new baseball stadium, it might push the city to consider building a new football stadium for a new franchise.

Whether a new baseball or football stadium is eventually built, city officials have said they believe an added attraction for any NFL team will be ambitious plans to build a sports complex in and around the Big A and The Pond.

The city hired a consulting group in February to develop a master plan to revitalize the 807-acre area. Disney’s partial purchase of the Angels has only heightened expectations.

Details of that planning process are expected to be revealed sometime this fall, city officials said.