Hoping to Lure Families to ‘Grizzly Falls’

It wasn’t a big, splashy event by Hollywood standards, but the premiere last Nov. 2 of the family adventure film “Grizzly Falls” certainly was memorable for the celebrities who came. There, standing in the lobby of the Writers Guild of America Theater in Beverly Hills--posing for the paparazzi--was a 2,000-pound trained grizzly bear named Whopper. It took a little coaxing--and special permission by the guild and the city of Beverly Hills--but Whopper made a grand entrance and didn’t gobble up the popcorn or demand preferential seating. Now, after pushing back the film for marketing reasons, Providence Entertainment is scheduled to release the movie Friday in 20 major markets, including Los Angeles and New York. Directed by Stewart Raffill and produced by Peter Simpson and Allan Scott, “Grizzly Falls” stars Richard Harris and Bryan Brown in a story about a boy who is abducted by a mother bear after hunters capture her cubs. While the film itself is not expected to climb very high in the U.S. box-office charts, Providence officials see “Grizzly Falls” as the first of a string of family films they hope to release in the coming years. “We think there are four lifestyle markets, if you will, that are not very well-addressed by Hollywood,” said Michael Harpster, president of worldwide marketing at Sherman Oaks-based Providence. These are Christian, family, Latino and country, all areas that major studios routinely ignore. Harpster believes that within five to seven years, the independent film company can capture 2% of the overall domestic box office simply by supplying movies that fit these groupings. There is some reason to think Harpster is right. Last fall, Providence released the Christian-themed end-of-the-world movie “The Omega Code” and saw its North American box office soar to $13 million. “If ‘The Omega Code’ is any indication,” Harpster said, “ ‘Grizzly Falls’ will perform well in places like Tulsa, Bakersfield and Fresno, and less strong in New York and Los Angeles.” If it does well there too, maybe Whopper will get an agent.

Shorter-Than-Expected ‘Life of Chris Gaines’

Watch this week for signs that “The Life of Chris Gaines” may be headed for an early death. The pop-rock experiment by country superstar Garth Brooks has sold more than 1 million copies since its late-September release, but even the president of the singer’s label acknowledges the numbers have been disappointing. “It’s about 50% below what I expected, honestly,” said Pat Quigley, chief of Capitol Records Nashville. Indeed, for context, it should be noted that Brooks’ last album, a 1998 two-CD live collection, sold 1 million copies in one week. This may be the week “Gaines” slides out of the 200 top sellers--it finished at No. 145 last week, selling fewer than 9,000 copies nationwide--marking the fastest decline for a Brooks album ever. The sales are even more disappointing considering that 200,000 copies were sold after Capitol Nashville pushed for an aggressive discount price on the album to prevent a flood of returns from retailers. What does this mean for “The Lamb,” the Paramount feature film planned for release late this year in which Brooks would star as the troubled pop-rock star Gaines? With fans rejecting Gaines, and Brooks talking publicly about retirement, how likely is it that the film will actually still hit the screen? “It’s dead,” says one senior executive at a rival record label, a sentiment echoed by many industry insiders. Not so, says Quigley, who pointed to the screenplay by Jeb Stuart (“The Fugitive,” “Die Hard”) as a more important factor than album sales. “I think if the album sold 1 million or sold 10 million, it has nothing to do with the making of the movie,” Quigley said. “The album established a character and a curiosity for the film, and that’s all that matters.” A Paramount spokeswoman said the film remains in development and declined to comment further, citing studio policy about works in progress.

Women Get In on NATPE TV Action

Action shows have long been a staple of first-run syndication, from “Baywatch” to “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.” Yet this year’s National Assn. of Television Program Executives convention, which takes place this week in New Orleans, approaches the action market with a somewhat different look. Buoyed by the success of “Xena: Warrior Princess” and the Pamela Anderson Lee series “V.I.P.,” the TV marketplace will be rife with new warrior heroines, fleshing out (often literally) a group already expanded this season by Tia Carrere as “Relic Hunter,” the skin-baring fantasy “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World,” “Peter Benchley’s Amazon” (starring model Carol Alt) and the futuristic “Cleopatra 2525.” Among those candidates being shopped to TV stations for next season are “Sheena,” with “Baywatch’s” Gena Lee Nolin donning the “Queen of the Jungle” mantle and leopard skin last regularly seen on TV in the mid-1950s; and “Queen of Swords,” a sort-of female Zorro. Syndicators concede there’s not much mystery to the formula, blending two favorite male pastimes--watching action and staring at pretty girls. In fact, scanning the new lineup, about all that’s missing is the six-pack.

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers