The Law of Attraction : With ‘A Time to Kill’ to his credit and more than a little media hype, Matthew McConaughey’s magnetic appeal is growing exponentially.

“A Time to Kill” director Joel Schumacher calls Matthew McConaughey “my Frankenstein.”

But only tongue in cheek, he swears. “I didn’t create Matthew,” Schumacher said of the 26-year-old actor starring in the film version of John Grisham’s first and favorite novel, released last Wednesday. “I just gave him the break he deserved. Everyone thinks that we were the engine, but it was his performance that caused the buzz. You can’t take someone out of the woodwork and make them a star. Only God can make a tree.”

Maybe so. But in this case, the media certainly helped. Riding the crest of one of the biggest promotional pushes in recent memory, the virtually unknown character actor has been hailed as the long-awaited successor to Marlon Brando, Tom Cruise and McConaughey’s idol, Paul Newman. Grisham’s refusal to approve stars ranging from Woody Harrelson to Val Kilmer--and Schumacher’s secret screen test of McConaughey--are firmly enmeshed in Hollywood lore.

The New Regency film, also starring Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, got off to a solid start. Greeted by mixed to positive reviews, “A Time to Kill” took in $14.6 million in its opening weekend, knocking “Independence Day” from the top spot for the first time since its July 2 release. Despite competition from the Olympics and the film’s longer running time reducing the number of screenings, it came close to the opening weekend numbers of Grisham’s “The Client,” also directed by Schumacher, which went on to gross $92 million in the domestic market. (For more details on the weekend’s box office, see Page F2.)

“Grisham movies usually draw an older audience, the over 25- who read books,” said Barry Reardon, Warner Bros. president of distribution. “Matthew McConaughey will probably expand the audience to young females, pushing the movie, we hope, past the $100-million mark.”

Pat Kingsley, president of the PMK publicity agency, accepted McConaughey as a client in April after media screenings in New York and Los Angeles. She takes no credit for the actor’s meteoric rise; in fact, she says, she was fielding calls. “No one I’ve handled has struck it this big this fast,” she said. “Bullock and Julia Roberts had been around for a while. Tom Cruise comes the closest, I suppose, since ‘Risky Business’ was his first starring role. With McConaughey, I felt like I was on a runaway train. Though the press viewed him as the Second Coming, there was the inherent risk of overkill.”

Lorenzo di Bonaventura, president of worldwide theatrical production for Warner Bros., agreed. “There’s no backlash yet, but a lot of people went in believing it was all Hollywood hype--saying, ‘I’m from Missouri. . . . Show me.’ ”

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He need not have worried. Time, the New York Times and Roger Ebert were among those who had kind words for the film--the tale of a Southern lawyer defending a man (Samuel L. Jackson) who murdered two rednecks who had raped his daughter. Many who found it excessively commercial and formulaic admitted to enjoying the movie despite themselves. When it came to McConaughey, there was virtual unanimity: Playing opposite seasoned professionals, they said, he more than held his own.

Rob Friedman, president of worldwide advertising and publicity for Warner Bros., said he feels vindicated by the reviews. “There was the overriding feeling we manipulated people,” he said. “But since McConaughey and the film both delivered, it wasn’t a case of ‘all show and no go.’ ”

An aspiring lawyer, McConaughey first studied film at the University of Texas at Austin. Hoping to pick up some pointers from a producer/casting director who was in town working on “Dazed and Confused,” he struck up a conversation with the man.

Don Phillips introduced McConaughey to director Richard Linklater who cast him as a druggy, older guy whose focus in life is picking up high school girls. A chance audition also won him the lead in “The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” after which he headed west.

Five days after arriving in Los Angeles in August, 1993, McConaughey was signed by the William Morris Agency, which landed him a nonspeaking part as a third baseman in “Angels in the Outfield” (1994) and as Drew Barrymore’s love interest, a patrolman named Abe Lincoln, in Herb Ross’ “Boys on the Side” (1995). “He was very good in a thankless role,” Schumacher said.

After playing a small-town sheriff in John Sayles’ “Lone Star,” McConaughey got his big break. Though Schumacher tested him for the role of a Klansman, he wanted him for the lead. “Forget it,” the director recalls Di Bonaventura telling him. “No one will cast an unknown.” On Mother’s Day last year, Schumacher tested him anyway. When the hard-to-please Grisham threw his weight behind the actor, the studio nervously agreed.

The publicity wheels began to grind in earnest when CBS’ “48 Hours” came on the set last fall and aired a piece on the film in November. After “Hard Copy” touted McConaughey as one of the sexiest men alive, Liz Smith ran an item on him at Christmastime. In late March and early April, the studio conducted research screenings in New York and Los Angeles, which generated enthusiastic exit polls. On a rainy April 2, Schumacher presented the film to some high-powered New York journalists out of which sizable stories in Newsweek, the New York Times and the magazine Us emerged.

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On June 11, the Los Angeles Times ran a Business section article about the media frenzy--a situation that intensified after the film’s press junket on June 24. Last week’s Entertainment Weekly cover story was on the film, and Interview magazine put McConaughey and co-star Ashley Judd on its August cover. After featuring McConaughey in a pack of young actors on the April cover, Vanity Fair gave the actor the August cover, solo. The first time the honor had been accorded to an unknown, the move triggered even more coverage on the networks and CNN.

On July 11, “48 Hours” ran an updated version of the program in which the newly minted sex symbol took correspondent Richard Schlesinger on a walking tour of Austin. Earlier that evening, the two promoted the show on “Entertainment Tonight.”

“It shows how desperate the Zeitgeist was for someone newsworthy--and Matthew is, without question, a different kind of leading man,” Schumacher said. “After a long period in which most of the male movie actors decided they’d be Seattle-grunge, stocking cap, goateed, chain-smoking, hotel-room smashing posers, his intelligence and integrity come through. Still, there’s also a bit of the bad boy in Matthew. At first glance, you think he’s every mother’s dream. At second glance, you’d lock your daughter up.”

It’s not often that one gets to see a movie star created, Di Bonaventura said. But he doesn’t envy McConaughey the pressure. “Hollywood--even more than the rest of the world--has a habit of building people up and tearing them down,” he said.

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The actor will next be seen as a speed-freak trucker in MGM’s “Larger Than Life”--a road movie co-starring Bill Murray and an elephant that, sources close to McConaughey say, he did as “a lark.” Come October, he’ll tackle the role of a nondenominational worldwide minister in Bob Zemeckis’ “Contact,” a story about a scientist (Jodie Foster) who receives a message from extraterrestrials. The picture will be made for Warner Bros., which struck pay dirt by optioning McConaughey for two more films in succession.

In May, Universal Pictures hoped to cast McConaughey as an IRA terrorist in “The Day of the Jackal” before Warner Bros. pressured them to drop the idea. If the studio grants permission, he may star in an outside project, possibly “The Newton Boys”--a period western, which 20th Century Fox starts shooting this spring, directed by “Dazed and Confused’s” Linklater.

The actor, paid $250,000 for “A Time to Kill,” will command $1 million-plus for his “Contact” role--a figure that has already multiplied exponentially. The actor already turned down TriStar’s $2-million offer to star opposite Julia Roberts in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

Though very adept at those “antihero, Paul Newman” roles, McConaughey should strive for a mix, Kingsley suggests.

“Look at Schwarzenegger,” she said. “After ‘Eraser,’ he’s coming out in the comedic ‘Jingle All the Way’ before plunging into Batman’s Mr. Freeze. Quality rather than scope should be the criterion. I’m afraid the biggest problem for Matthew will be his loss of anonymity. He likes to do a lot of research and you can’t go out there if they know who you are.”