LOS ANGELES — Adventures in the perilous life of ``Hudson Hawk``:
In Rome, where this latest collaboration between the ``Die Hard`` battery of superstar producer Joel Silver and superstar Bruce Willis rolled for several months last summer, strange things happened that quickly propelled the action film far beyond its original $30 million budget.
For example, the film`s original lead actress, a little-known European newcomer named Maruschka Detmers, didn`t work out (she reportedly had trouble with her English) and was replaced by Andie MacDowell. The director of photography was replaced after six weeks. And the Italian crew was, shall we say, uncooperative?
``They have the philosophy of `We work to live, not live to work,`
`` said ``Hawk`` director Michael Lehmann, whose previous major directorial credit was the campy and bizarre ``Heathers.`` ``After 10 hours they`d say,
`That`s it, goodbye.` We`d offer more overtime, but they`d say, `No thanks.` So we`d have to wait sometimes to get what we wanted.``
All this costs bucks. And lots of them.
So how much did this strange action-adventure film-the first alleged blockbuster film of the summer season-finally end up costing? Ask Bruce Willis, and his smile turns to a scowl.
``Go ahead and say $150 million,`` he snaps. ``The figure is being blown way out of proportion anyway.``
Willis` discontent is understandable. ``Hudson Hawk,`` now playing in Chicago, is the pet project of his five-year film career, a movie based on a fictional smooth cat of a character he created when pushing Bloody Marys at New York bars in the early `80s.
Not surprisingly in this age when box-office returns are monitored every bit as heavily as reviews, the budget of ``Hudson Hawk,`` as well as its arduous shooting schedule, have become a cause celebre, competing for attention with the relative merits of the film itself. ``Hawk Soars Over Budget,`` screamed a headline in the Hollywood trade journal Variety in November-and there were rumors for a while that the film had cost upwards of $60 million. (Producer Silver, notorious for his deep pockets and lavish spending, says the thing cost only around $45 million.)
The unusual interest in ``Hawk`s`` budget isn`t just idle gossip. Not this time. This movie bears a burden. For ``Hawk``-a lavish, violent action-adventure romp complete with decapitated heads and punchlines galore-may be, especially if it fails, remembered as the last of a dying breed: the super-expensive summer movie.
Indeed, what does it mean when Premiere magazine, in its fifth annual summer movie poll, predicts that a little Julia Roberts flick called ``Dying Young,`` about romance and cancer, will be the summer`s top-grossing film?
Or, when Disney Studios drops the prestige-Madonna-summer-of-`92-project
``Evita`` because the producer, Robert Stigwood, refused to lower his $30 million budget? (Paramount and Universal are also rumored to have passed on that project because of the cost, which is relatively low compared with the big-budget blockbusters of just a few years ago, such as ``Batman,`` which ran up a tab in excess of $50 million.
The trend, it seems, is quite clear: Action-adventure blockbusters have lost favor in increasingly bean-counter controlled Hollywood, at least for the time being, replaced by kinder dramas and gentler comedies (read: cheaper films). In the summer of 1991, only four of the top 25 film releases are built around violent content and rock-`em-sock-`em action; last year, there were 10. The spirit of ``Ghost`` lives on. Last year`s surprise July smash proved to Hollywood executives that summer audiences didn`t require blood and guts to show up in droves. They`d also come out for romance, for good storytelling. This year`s summer fare is decidedly more adult, with an emphasis on stories and characters instead of special effects.
The only real exceptions: Kevin Costner`s ``Robin Hood,`` the Arnold Schwarzenegger epic ``Terminator II`` (which reportedly cost close to $100 million to make) and ``Hudson Hawk.``
Willis, who makes clear that he is no big fan of the money-obsessed media these days, disagrees that ``Hudson Hawk`` will be one of the last big-budget action yarns. ``Just because one genre became popular doesn`t mean that another is going away,`` he says with barely concealed contempt. ``In Hollywood, no one says action-adventure movies are going away-that`s the press.``
Willis does concede that perhaps it`s time action films reinvent themselves a bit, maybe expand their boundaries. ``Hudson Hawk,`` he says, has done that, in fact, practically inventing a whole new category: the spoof-action-adventure caper.
Take Andie MacDowell`s character, for instance. She plays Anna Baragli, Willis` romantic interest who, it turns out, is actually a nun. ``Oh, I know!`` says the actress when it is suggested that such a characterization in a punch-fest could result in a certain degree of controversy.
