Universal Appeal?

Volcano nuts and action fans may be primed for Friday’s arrival of “Dante’s Peak,” but nowhere is the anticipation level higher than in the executive suites at Universal Pictures.

The studio had a pretty dismal year in 1996, after all. Except for the breakout success of “The Nutty Professor” ($128 million at the U.S. box office), Universal seemed to spend much of the year reeling from disappointments like “Dragonheart,” “Flipper,” “The Frighteners,” “The Chamber,” “Sgt. Bilko” and “Daylight.”

Overall, the studio finished a disappointing sixth in domestic box-office market share among the studios, down from fourth place in 1995--this despite co-releasing the blockbuster “Twister” with Warner Bros. (Universal shared in the overseas profits, but not domestic.)

Universal isn’t making that same mistake with “Dante’s Peak”; it shouldered the entire $100-million-plus budget itself and thus won’t have to share its receipts with any other studio.

The film won a highly publicized race to beat to the marketplace 20th Century Fox’s “Volcano,” about an eruption that threatens Los Angeles. (That film will be released later this year.) Universal has spent an additional $20 million on a massive publicity campaign.

The hopes the studio has on the film are underscored by the fact that this is the first major film to be released by Universal’s new management team.

“From an early test screening we had last week, the response we had was really strong,” said Frank Biondi Jr., new chairman and chief executive officer at Universal. “So we feel very positive about this film.” He added that the strong box office of “Star Wars” last weekend buoyed spirits and says that event pictures can do well in the dead of winter.

It’s been awhile since the company has had much to feel positive about. A companywide shake-up in management and business structure that began 18 months ago, affecting the studio, music, TV and theme park divisions, left Universal in turmoil and uncertainty for a year. There were layoffs in television and syndication with more expected to come this year in the movie division. Executives either moved on, were fired or retired, including the mighty Lew Wasserman, founder of MCA/Universal.

It was Wasserman’s team, under the guidance of then talent agent Michael Ovitz, who sold the company in November 1990 to Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Corp. But in June 1995 Matsushita sold 80% of Universal to the Montreal-based Seagram Co. Ltd. (Seagram’s plans to buy the additional 20%.)

Seagram’s young, enterprising chief, Edgar Bronfman Jr., tapped Ron Meyer, Ovitz’s former partner at Creative Artists Agency, as Universal’s new president and chief operating officer, bumping aside former studio head Tom Pollock, who eventually left.

While Ovitz was recently ousted from his No. 2 spot at Disney after a year on the job, Meyer, considered a low-key problem-solver and capable decision-maker, still reportedly has the strong support of the Seagram’s brass.

Meyer is flanked by new management team members Biondi, who came from Viacom; former Disney executive Chris McGurk, who is chief operating officer; former Warner music chief Doug Morris, who heads the music division; Greg Meidel, chairman of Universal’s Television Group; and Howard Weitzman, a prominent lawyer and friend of Meyer’s who became executive vice president.

In the film division, Meyer’s management changes had a direct impact on how movies were made last year, and on what will hit theaters this year. Production president Hal Lieberman was replaced with TriStar Pictures’ Marc Platt, who approved TriStar’s “Jerry Maguire” before he left, and was instrumental in bringing Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme to Universal. Platt eventually brought over Stacey Snider, who is co-president of production.

“Edgar Bronfman and Ron Meyer are attempting to do nothing less than change the entire corporate culture of MCA,” says Pollock, who is now chairman of the American Film Institute. “But you really can’t judge their effectiveness just on the movies that came out in ’96. It wouldn’t be fair to judge them until the end of this year, or ’98. It takes three years in a changeover to gauge how good or bad their decisions really are.”

Meyer has actually cultivated two key executives from the former regime. He elevated former production chief Casey Silver, whom Pollock had hired, to chairman of Universal’s Motion Picture Group. Then Silver and Meyer promoted Nikki Rocco to distribution president, appointing the first female distribution president in Hollywood history.

There have been persistent rumors around Hollywood that Silver, who was largely responsible for the disappointing ’96 movies slate, may eventually be shown the door, but Biondi insists that is not true: “Unequivocally, Casey’s regime starts from ‘Dante’s Peak’ on, and ultimately like anyone else in this industry, he will be judged by the pictures he chooses.”

For their part, Universal executives insist that the choices it made for its ’96 movies were consciously conservative in a year of transition when no one knew who their bosses would be or what movies they would want to produce. From this mind-set, one top production executive said, movies like “Daylight” and “The Chamber” looked safe.

“We didn’t know from one minute to the next who was in or who was out,” the source says. “Everyone just wanted to keep the trains running.”

Silver concurs. “In the context of all the change I’m delighted to say we were very profitable,” he says, “although it would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I wish we had made better movies.”

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One both Silver and Meyer wish they had made was “Michael,” the John Travolta holiday hit that Universal put in turnaround and New Line Cinema picked up. Studio sources say Universal had thought the original script was too dark.

The “Michael” turnaround was not Meyer’s only misstep, say Meyer’s rivals and predecessors. He startled many in Hollywood when he signed his former longtime client Sylvester Stallone to a three-picture, $60-million pact.

“Universal thought it was playing it safe” with another Stallone action film, says an MGM executive, “but the demographics that once supported the bloated action films with guys like Sly is eroding. Brad Pitt, Will Smith, Keanu Reeves and now Travolta are in; Sly, [Steven] Seagal and [Arnold] Schwarzenegger are on the way out.”

In addition to hoping for better reception for its films this year, Universal must also hope its decision to carry the lion’s share of financing on its big pictures--including the Jim Carrey film “Liar, Liar,” Steven Spielberg’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” Richard Gere’s “The Jackal” and Mike Nichols’ “Primary Colors”--will pay off. Some Hollywood observers aren’t so sure.

“They haven’t done any outside financing on these pictures, where all of the pictures in ‘93, ’94 and ’95 had it [except for 1993’s mega-hit “Jurassic Park,” which Universal did not share financing on],” said one former top Universal executive. “Every studio in town is shaving costs with outside financing. Universal doesn’t. If these pictures flop--well, there’s your answer, isn’t it?”

Biondi counters that of the roughly 19 films per year they plan to produce, about nine to 12 will have outside financing.