Eyes Wide Open : Some Hollywood players offer their off-the-cuff takes on the highs and lows of the season.

From now until the end of August, it’s Summer Movie Season in Hollywood, a noisy festival of fireworks, fantasy and raunchy fun that has become perhaps the most boisterous communal ritual in American pop culture. Exuberant young moviegoers squeeze into lines that snake around the block, dads buy tubs of gooey buttered popcorn for the family, and filmmakers--well, they start paying close attention to headache-remedy ads.

With every weekend crowded with hotly touted new films, summer is high-anxiety time in Hollywood. “I handle the pressure by making everyone around me miserable,” says director Jon Turteltaub, whose 1996 film “Phenomenon” hit theaters the same day as “Independence Day.”

“It’s a time of year when I have bowel trouble and a sudden desire to make increased visits to my therapist--and I wish I were kidding. Summer movies are the definitive example of capitalism. There’s more supply and demand than at any other time of year, and you just hope your movie is the one in demand.”

To make some sense of this seasonal madness, Calendar convened its first Summer Movie Cabinet. After gorging themselves on popcorn, five prominent filmmakers revealed their guilty summer pleasures, made shoot-from-the-hip box-office predictions and reminisced about their summer film experiences, both as filmmakers and as young movie fans.

This year’s panelists: Turteltaub, whose new film, “Instinct,” is due June 4; Mace Neufeld, producer of “The General’s Daughter,” starring John Travolta, which arrives June 11; New Line Cinema president of production Michael De Luca, whose big summer film is “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” also due June 11; writer-director Kevin Williamson, creator of the “Scream” series, who makes his directorial debut July 30 with “Killing Mrs. Tingle”; and producer Brian Grazer, whose “Bowfinger,” starring Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, is due July 23.

Before our photo shoot, Turteltaub and Williamson badgered Neufeld for details about “The Omen,” a 1976 summer thriller he produced.

“The first time I saw it on the [now-defunct] Z Channel, I was too scared to get through it,” Turteltaub tells Neufeld. “So I called a friend and made him stay on the phone while we both watched it on TV.”

Williamson asks if it was a hit right away.

“By 9:30 p.m. the Friday night it opened, we were very drunk because it did so well that we’d already made our net profit,” Neufeld says. “And that meant something, because in our deal Fox had to pay out on net profit.”

“Wow,” says Turteltaub. “So the devil really was involved in that movie.”

One of Williamson’s favorite scenes shows Gregory Peck being attacked by a pack of wild dogs in a graveyard. “We had great German shepherds, but we couldn’t use them because of a quarantine, so we got Rottweilers instead,” Neufeld recalls. “They were so fierce that even the stunt guys were afraid of them. On the first take, the dog clamped his jaws so tight on our stuntman’s arm that he just passed out. After that, the crew called them our devil dogs.”

Near the end of the photo session, De Luca squints into the hot lights, wiping his forehead. “I can feel the oil blotting on my head already,” he says. Turteltaub takes a napkin and dabs De Luca’s brow. “Let me help,” he says. “I’m a director--I’ve seen this done before.” Before anyone else starts sweating, it’s time to begin the summer movie summit.

Q: There’s no getting around it--the big story of this summer is “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace.” Judging from the people you’re talking to, how big is the anticipation level?

Kevin Williamson: Every time I go to the gym, all my trainer talks about is that movie. I’m probably the only person in America who’s been so busy that I haven’t even seen the trailer yet.

Michael De Luca: You know the fanaticism is really high if people are already camping out, spending the night outside the theater. I’ve been on the Web site all year long. The trailer on the Net has such great resolution that I downloaded it onto my computer and show it to people when they come to my office for meetings.

Brian Grazer: It’s bigger than the millennium. A couple of years ago, George Lucas and his kids went out with me and my kids at DisneyWorld and my kids were pretty low-key about the whole thing. But now that the movie’s coming out, they’re saying, “Hey, we went out with George Lucas!” They know as much about George as they know about me.

Q: Prediction time. What’s the movie’s opening five-day weekend gross going to be?

Jon Turteltaub: $125 million.

Mace Neufeld: $85 million.

De Luca: $125 million.

Grazer: $120 million.

Williamson: $125 million.

Q: The other movie everybody is anticipating, but no one has seen, is “Eyes Wide Shut.” Does it matter that Tom Cruise has been away from the screen for two years?

Grazer: No way. It’ll take about one second for people to re-familiarize themselves with him.

De Luca: These days, you’re never really off the screen, because people are still renting your videos--they’re watching “Mission: Impossible” and “Jerry Maguire.”

Turteltaub: I’d never bet against Tom Cruise, even if you told me he was playing Nicole Kidman’s part.

Q: What’s the sleeper hit of this summer going to be?

Neufeld: “Runaway Bride.” It’s got a great combination with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. The last time out, in “Pretty Woman,” they were magic, and that still resonates in everyone’s memory.

De Luca: “American Pie.” I loved the script because it was so outrageous. It really made me think of the feeling we had as kids, when we were all tripping over ourselves to see “Porky’s.” It sounds like a great, raunchy, laugh-out-loud teen comedy.

Turteltaub: I go with “American Pie” too. The buzz is great.

Grazer: I want to see “The Haunting.” It’s a great time for a cool, visual-effects horror movie.

Williamson: For me, it’s “Austin Powers II.” Everyone is ready for it. Plus, it became such a big hit in home video that it could do a lot more business than the original film.

Q: One of the more intriguing matchups comes the weekend of June 18, when Disney’s family animated film “Tarzan” goes up against the hip teen animated film “South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.” Who wins the weekend?

Grazer: You have to go with “Tarzan.” Whenever you have a story with such a classic, mythic appeal at the center of the film, it’s hard to beat. [laughs] Of course, I don’t know if my kids agree with me.

De Luca: With an R rating, it would be hard for “South Park” to win the weekend. If “Tarzan” is good, it could end up its theatrical run with $125 million to $140 million. “South Park” is going after a different audience--teens, college-age kids. I’d bet it ends up with around $60 million to $80 million.

Williamson: I’m a big fan of both, but I can see “South Park” on TV. “Tarzan” should win because it’s more of an event film.

Turteltaub: “Tarzan” in a knockout. I give it 20-1 odds to beat “South Park.” Disney invented the animated summer movie. If they don’t win, heads will roll.

Q: How bad is the pressure when you’ve got a summer movie? Do you sleep much the week your film comes out?

Turteltaub: It’s a timely question. I just got a prescription today for some sleep medicine.

Grazer: I never sleep well. That’s a big prescription week. I keep thinking, I don’t want to be embarrassed. When you come out in the summer, you can’t do it quietly. You have to be noisy, you have to make big claims. So either you’re going to be really happy or really embarrassed.

De Luca: For me, the worst time is when we’re doing test screenings--that’s when I lose sleep. Once the movie’s out, it’s beyond your control. But the week before, if the tracking doesn’t look good and you’re not breaking through the clutter, then I worry: Should we pump more money into the movie? Should we change the ads?

Q: Do you read the reviews?

Turteltaub: I’m already half awake when I hear the thump of the newspaper at the door. If it’s a bad review, vomiting is not out of the question. Either that or I think, “It’s 5 a.m., who do I know in New York that I call and complain to?”

Neufeld: That’s really when I don’t sleep well. You’re not supposed to care about the reviews, but you always do.

Grazer: When I read really bad reviews, my whole body chemistry changes. It was so bad once that my lip blew up into a cold sore and I had to cancel all meetings for the day.

Williamson: I try not to get too worked up about them. It’s like what Katharine Hepburn said: “The good ones are never good enough and the bad ones can just traumatize you.”

Q: Does everybody go out to the theaters the night the movie opens?

Grazer: For “Apollo 13,” Ron Howard and I got a car and we had In-N-Out burgers, a good bottle of Bordeaux and a box of See’s candies--stuff that tastes good and is bad for you. And then we made the rounds, we went to Santa Monica, to the Marina, to Westwood and Century City, then to Universal City, and there were crowds everywhere, so by the end of the night we were happy.

De Luca: I remember “The Mask,” in the summer of ‘94, because it was my first movie as head of production. Bob Shaye [New Line Chairman], [‘Mask’ director] Chuck Russell and Cameron Diaz and I went around in a limousine, the theaters were packed and people were laughing, so there was much rejoicing that night.

Neufeld: We went to Westwood for the opening of “Hunt for Red October.” I’ll always remember driving up with my wife and seeing a great line around the theater and walking in without buying a ticket. It’s a great moment when you can say, “I’m the producer. I’d like to come in and watch.” You really savor the experience.

Q: And when things don’t go so well?

Turteltaub: For “Cool Runnings,” we went into the El Capitan Theater and there were 17 people in the audience on a Friday night--and we were seven of them.

Grazer: The worst was on “Cry-Baby.” Ron and I met in a sushi bar in Westwood and walked to the Avco, where our driver was going to meet us. But when we went in, we saw about four people there. It was tragic! So we had our driver take us to my house in Malibu, we had a couple bottles of wine, watched “Drugstore Cowboy” twice back to back, and Ron shaved off the mustache he’d had for 15 years.

Q: How soon do you know if your movie’s a hit or not?

Turteltaub: I used to get the call at 6 a.m. Saturday morning from the studio and be breathless with anticipation. But now everybody has these secret box-office phone numbers and they call you at 5:30 with the numbers, so when the studio calls at 6, you have to pretend to be excited or depressed.

De Luca: I don’t check the grosses. Really. I don’t call in or anything. With “Rush Hour,” I saw the numbers on TV Sunday night and went “Yeah!” But it’s more fun to come in Monday morning and be surprised.

Neufeld: It’s very different than in the old days. With “The Omen,” we had a buffet dinner at my house. We got a blackboard and as the regional guys from the studio called in the numbers from the theaters around the country, we put ‘em up on the board, just like it was election night.

Grazer: I hate those commiserating “Oh God, how do you feel?” calls when the movie doesn’t do so well. They might as well say, “Let’s open up the body and look at the dead.” With “Nutty Professor,” the studio thought it would only have a $10-million weekend and then it did $25 million. But when I talked to [then Universal studio chief] Casey Silver on Sunday, he had a really lukewarm reaction and I got so mad that before I hung up on him, I screamed, “Success is a rare and perishable commodity! Learn to enjoy it!”

Q: When you were kids, where would you go to the movies? And what’d you see?

Williamson: I lived in Aransas Pass, Texas, and my mom would drop me off at the Rialto, which was the only theater in town. I’d get there in time for the first movie and stay until my mom picked me up at 9 p.m. I saw “Jaws” there, “Airport ‘75,” “Benji” and “Star Wars.” The kids stormed the theater for “Jaws.” It was a mob scene.

De Luca: We’d drive to a multiplex in Long Island called the Sunrise 6. It was really hot and we’d come right from the beach with our dates still in their bathing suits. I was the movie fanatic, so I’d decide what movie to see and I always made them sit right in the middle of the theater. We saw “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Back to the Future,” “Ghostbusters” and every other summer you had a “Rocky” movie, which was a big deal when you were from Brooklyn.

Turteltaub: I usually went to the Beverly Theater on Beverly Drive--it’s now the Israeli Bank. But I stood in line for four hours in Westwood to see “The Empire Strikes Back” and waited three hours in Century City to see “Jaws.” If I was 16, I’d be begging my parents to let me stay out till 3 a.m. to see “Phantom Menace” and they’d probably still say no.

Grazer: I lived in the Valley and I remember how hot it was when I’d ride my bike to the Sherman Oaks Theater. I’d get Milk Duds and go see all the James Bond movies.

Neufeld: When I was growing up in Manhattan, we’d take the subway down to 42nd Street, where there were movie theaters lined up next to each other. We’d go on movie marathons, where we’d see three double-features in a row at three different theaters, from 4 p.m. to midnight. We always sat in the balcony, because it was more fun up there, and if you were a sneaky teenage smoker, you could always smoke in the balcony.

Q: On a long hot summer day, what would be your favorite guilty pleasure, the summer movie you could watch over and over again?

Turteltaub: “Die Hard.” It’s thoroughly entertaining without an ounce of stupidity.

Williamson: “Jaws.” I’d love to see it again for the first time. It was the movie that made me want to be in the movie business.

Grazer: “Animal House.” It’s a great gross-out fantasy. It was such an empowering comic experience, to see that the F students could still triumph and get the girls.

Neufeld: “Independence Day.” It’s wonderful and inventive and a great ride, too. I felt like I was watching a movie that could’ve been made 25 years ago--it had a sense of old-time movie-making pleasure.

De Luca: “Armageddon.” I’d only call it a guilty pleasure because so many other people trashed it. I hated all the whining about it representing the end of storytelling as we know it. I saw it twice and had the best time. It’s got funny lines, great cut-to-music cues and terrific action set-pieces. I wish there were a movie like that every summer.