Sony’s Calley Faces Hard Choices for the Holidays

When John Calley arrives at Sony Pictures Entertainment next month to head the studio’s filmmaking operations, he will immediately face crucial decisions if the studio is to rebound quickly from its recent management upheavals.

Despite the executive suite shuffles, Calley, who was named president and chief operating officer of Sony on Tuesday, will find a star-driven slate of movies left behind by his predecessor, Mark Canton.

Still, one of Calley’s first challenges will be to select what films to greenlight for the lucrative Thanksgiving-Christmas season of 1997, projects that must begin shooting early next year if they stand a chance of making it into theaters in time.

With the clock ticking and nerves beginning to rattle on the Culver City lot, here are some of Calley’s immediate options:

On the Columbia Pictures side, a project being highly touted as a possible Christmas ’97 release is “The Kiss,” the story of a man who is not ready to commit to his girlfriend and is then turned into a frog by the woman’s grandmother. The film would feature a computer-created frog with a still-to-be-selected voice featuring a top celebrity.

Calley will be offered other possibilities. They include remakes of the popular TV sitcoms “Bewitched” (which the late Ted Bessell had been attached to direct) and “I Dream of Jeannie,” which each have scripts in development; “The Good Shepherd,” a John Woo-directed project with an Eric Roth script that revolves around the birth of the CIA; “Afterlife,” a sci-fi action adventure; and the sequel to the box-office smash “Bad Boys.”

Calley also will be asked about “Dinotopia,” which some on the lot believe could be Columbia’s summer “event” movie of 1998. Based on the popular, visually stunning book of the same name, it is the story about a father and son in the 19th century who live on an island of dinosaurs. Canton had high hopes for the project, which would feature computer-generated characters. (He and current Sony executives declined to comment for this story.)

On the TriStar side, studio executives already have penciled in next year’s Christmas movie, “Old Friends,” a romantic comedy directed by James Brooks, starring Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt and Greg Kinnear. It is currently shooting.

Still to be decided is whether to go ahead with “The Mask of Zorro,” with Antonio Banderas.

The selection of Calley, a well-respected film executive who has headed United Artists, has been warmly welcomed by many in the industry.

“There has, in the past, been a great deal of confusion in the decisions that were made,” said veteran producer Irwin Winkler. “I think with John Calley coming in . . . people are looking forward to some stability at Columbia and TriStar.”

Frank Price, who once headed Columbia, said Calley gives the film community “great reassurance” about the studio.

Entertainment attorney Eric Weissman said: “What Calley brings to the table is he is very highly regarded, has great intelligence, great taste and, presumably, good contacts.”

Rob Carlson, a literary agent at the William Morris Agency, said a healthy Sony is good for Hollywood. “People want the studio to be healthy,” he said. “I think everybody is rooting for that to happen.”

For some time, Sony has been variously described as “moribund” or “paralyzed.”

The studio gave the world the flop “Last Action Hero” and this year has had a string of box-office misfires ranging from “Multiplicity” to “Mrs. Winterbourne.” Even Jim Carrey’s “The Cable Guy” did not live up to expectations.

Turmoil on the lot resulted in a flood of negative press as Canton and his staff were placed under a microscope.

People complained that Canton was routinely two hours late for meetings, that one of his top lieutenants treated A-list directors with disrespect, that producers were “nickel-and-dimed” on their per diems and that the company didn’t always pay talent on time.

But a funny thing happened at Sony amid all the stagnation and management intrigue: The movies Columbia and TriStar will release between now and next summer appear unusually strong on paper.

Want box-office stars? Sony will have them: Tom Cruise in “Jerry MacGuire,” Barbra Streisand in “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt in “The Devil’s Own,” Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love in “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” Julia Roberts in “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow in “Kilronan,” Bruce Willis in “The Fifth Element” and Ford again in “Air Force One.”

Want top directors? Sony will have them: Milos Foreman, Alan J. Pakula, Wolfgang Petersen, Barry Sonnenfeld, Paul Verhoeven, James Brooks, Barbet Schroeder and Mike Newell.

Want big-budget action movies? Sony will have them: Next summer, Columbia releases “Men in Black” starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith while TriStar has the sci-fi action film “Starship Troopers.” TriStar is gearing up for “Godzilla,” developed by the same team that created this summer’s blockbuster “Independence Day.”

Meanwhile, things already appear to be settling down on the lot. Insiders say Lucy Fisher, who has been acting studio chief since Canton’s departure, has already fostered a positive attitude that bodes well for the future.

Others point to the irony that if some of these star-driven films prove to be big hits, they will have been greenlighted by Canton.