And in Hollywood's executive offices on the brink of the summer movie season, there is, quite simply, Terror. Nearly 50 titles are slated for wide release between now and Labor Day, and roaming among them are more $100 million-plus special-effects-driven action pics, alien-invasion pics, disaster epics and star-driven vehicles (Travolta! Cage! Stallone!) than one season has ever before accommodated. With every studio eager to deliver this year's Independence Day, the competition is fierce, and the potential for financial hemorrhaging high. The suits are sweating bullets.
``Every summer we say the same thing,'' notes Tom Sherak, chairman of 20th Century Fox's Domestic Film Group. ``But I don't ever remember a summer with as many big pictures as this year. . . . We're going to Pac-Man each other this summer. We're going to eat each other up . . . and the strong will survive.''
The strong, and the invincible. In the latter category - the mega-ton gorillas that are certain to open big and top the magic $100 million box office mark - there is, of course, The Lost World (May 23), Steven Spielberg's sequel to Jurassic Park, in which chaos theorist Jeff Goldblum returns with a new gang (Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn) to that island a-crawlin' with raptors, rexes and other computer-generated and animatronic hulks.
And there is Batman and Robin (June 20), the third sequel in the Dark Knight franchise and the first to star George Clooney as the Bat guy, a.k.a. Bruce Wayne. The trailers and the buzz for this one haven't been great, but as a higher-up at a competing studio noted, with a cast that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone, and with the Bat-marketing machinery running in high gear, the issue of whether the movie's any good (and it does look terribly campy and arch) becomes irrelevant.
``Ultimately, it won't matter that much,'' says the exec. ``It will open well and gross $150 million, even if it's bad.''
