At Christmas, studio execs as anxious as a 9-year-old

By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN

Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD --- In the rest of the world, there are 12 days of Christmas, full of faith, hope and joy. But in Hollywood, every one of the 12 days is a nail-biter, full of anxiety, disappointment --- and an occasional giddy burst of triumph.

"At Christmas, you've got 12 days to make a statement with your movie," says Tom Sherak, chairman of the 20th Century Fox domestic film group. "And if you can't make a statement, you better get out of the kitchen, because if you don't instantly attract a healthy chunk of the audience, you'll be out of the theaters by January."

That's the spirit of the season in movieland: survival of the fittest. As Universal marketing chief Marc Shmuger puts it: "It's a time of year when I say a lot of Hail Marys."

Holiday time in Hollywood runs roughly from mid-November to New Year's Eve, with the critical 12 days coming around Christmas. This year 13 major films open between Dec. 19 and Dec. 29. It's an ultra- competitive breeding ground for Oscar hopefuls as well as the year's biggest adult-oriented commercial hits. Walk the beach in Maui or ski Aspen Mountain over the holidays and you'll bump into a throng of executives, agents and producers all armed with cell phones, keeping tabs on the latest box-office results.

Last year, it was holiday time when Miramax launched "Shakespeare in Love," which went on to win the Oscar for best picture. The year before it was "Titanic," which became the all-time box-office champion. In some years, the season is bountiful. In 1997, "Titanic," "As Good as It Gets" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" all came out in the same week; all made $100 million-plus at the box office. But the year before it was a barren harvest. "Ghosts of Mississippi," "One Fine Day," "My Fellow Americans" and "In Love and War" all came out the same week. All did poorly, bested by a bratty teen animated movie called "Beavis and Butt-head Do America."

Kid-oriented fare usually opens around Thanksgiving; this year the family feast begins with "Pokemon," from Warner Bros. on Wednesday and "Toy Story 2" from Disney/Pixar on Nov. 19. But with Oscar balloting just around the corner, Christmas holiday movies give filmmakers an opportunity to wrestle with Big Topics and actors a chance to tackle Big Roles, with all this heady ambition overflowing in Big Movies, many of them wheezing in past the 2 1/2-hour dare-to- stay-awake mark.

Yet when else could you see Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman, Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, Robin Williams as a robot, Alanis Morissette as God, John Cusack as Nelson Rockefeller, Chow Yun-Fat updating Yul Brynner and Robert De Niro as an uptight security guard taking post- stroke singing lessons from --- yes, it's true --- a drag queen?

It's a time for showy roles and serious drama, with many films being spawned out of novels and biographies. The long list of literary adaptations includes "Snow Falling on Cedars," "The Green Mile," "Angela's Ashes," "Girl, Interrupted," "The Talented Mr. Ripley," "The Cider House Rules," "Bicentennial Man," "End of the Affair," "Mansfield Park," "Stuart Little," "Sleepy Hollow," "Felicia's Journey" and "Anywhere but Here."

In addition, there's a high-profile crop of biographies, including "The Hurricane," with Denzel Washington as imprisoned boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter; "Man on the Moon," with Carrey as the late comic Kaufman; "The Messenger," with Milla Jovovich as Joan of Arc; "Topsy- Turvy," Mike Leigh's portrait of operetta's Gilbert & Sullivan; and "Cradle Will Rock," Tim Robbins' semi-fictional account of a struggle for artistic freedom in Depression-era New York featuring such luminaries as Orson Welles, John Houseman and Diego Rivera.

There are also several box-office-oriented sequels and remakes, including the latest James Bond thriller, "The World Is Not Enough"; "Toy Story 2"; and the Jody Foster-starring "Anna and the King." Other films of note include "Any Given Sunday," a new Oliver Stone football film featuring Al Pacino and Dennis Quaid; "Liberty Heights," the latest Barry Levinson look at his Baltimore childhood; "End of Days," a millennium thriller starring Arnold Schwarzenegger; and "Magnolia," the Paul Thomas Anderson-directed drama that features an ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, William H. Macy and Philip Baker Hall.

Of all these entries, which ones have the most heat? An informal sampling of industry insiders prompted the following consensus predictions. For box-office potential: "Toy Story 2," "The World Is Not Enough" and "Bicentennial Man." For best picture potential: "The Hurricane," "Magnolia," "The Green Mile" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley." For sleeper surprises: "Sleepy Hollow," "Girl, Interrupted" and "Galaxy Quest.

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