BEATTY, MAY, HOFFMAN SIGN FOR A BIG-BUCKS COMEDY

Columbia Pictures recently issued a press release announcing the signing of Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as co-stars of a comedy to be written and directed by Elaine May, produced by Beatty and filmed in Morocco.

What a package! What a coup! What a budget!

Sources say Beatty and Hoffman are each being paid $5 million, plus a share--probably 5%--of gross profits. That means that every dollar Columbia gets in film rentals won’t really be a dollar, more like 90 cents. The stars would split the dime.

May, who hasn’t directed a film since the ill-fated “Mikey and Nicky” in 1976, is said to be getting $2 million, running the pre-entry tab to $12 million. For the studio to break even right now, the press release would have to gross $30 million.

The total budget for the still untitled film is reportedly more than $30 million. With marketing and advertising costs added, the final price tag could be as high as $45 million. For the studio to get into profit--after exhibitors and the two stars take their cuts--the movie will have to accumulate nearly $100 million at the box office.

The following movies have done that well this year: “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Rambo.”

Of course, there are movie budgets, then there are budgets for May, Beatty and Hoffman movies, which are usually organic. They grow.

These are three of the most uncompromising figures in modern film, about to spend months in a hot Third World country sculpting a piece of comedy art. As one studio executive put it: ‘Those three personalities on a set in Morocco? Forget it!’ ”

Not everyone is ready to charge Columbia and its beleaguered chief executive officer Guy McElwaine with reckless spending. Even without seeing the script (McElwaine is apparently the only one at Columbia who has read it, and he isn’t sharing much with the press these days), most industry people acknowledge that Beatty and Hoffman could be the best home run combination since Gehrig and Ruth.

For all their off-screen intensity, Beatty and Hoffman (we’ll do this alphabetically, their agents can duke it out for top billing) have given their most accessible performances in comedies; Beatty in “Heaven Can Wait,” which earned $50 million in rentals in 1978, and Hoffman in “Tootsie,” which pumped $95 million into Columbia’s account in 1982-83.

“They’re big everywhere,” said one executive, “domestic, overseas, cable, network, cassette. If it turns out to be a good movie, and she (May) brings it in for $30 million, they’ve got a bargain.”

Barry Franzen, an entertainment industry analyst with Arthur Young and Co. in Beverly Hills, says that if the film does $100 million or more at the box office, it can expect to earn another $15 million to $25 million in TV network, cable and cassette sales.

More concern has been expressed over May than either Beatty or Hoffman. She’s directed only three films, and two of them--”A New Leaf” and “Mikey and Nicky”--ran into serious editing problems. (Her other film was “The Heartbreak Kid,” which earned an Oscar nomination for her daughter, Jeannie Berlin.)

As a screenwriter, however, she is acknowledged as one of the best, and has often been called in to resuscitate ailing scripts. Among her more successful patients: “Heaven Can Wait” and “Tootsie.”

Because of the obvious costs and potential problems, there has been speculation that McElwaine--fending off rumors he was about to lose his job--announced the deal before it was definite.

McElwaine did not return calls on the subject this week, and other Columbia brass claimed not to know much about it. But one executive did say that May returned Tuesday from a scouting trip to Morocco and that production is scheduled to begin next month.

Whatever McElwaine’s intentions, the spotlight has not shifted away from him; it simply burns brighter, hotter. He may have been using the project as a temporary executive splint, or he may have the potential casting coup of the ‘80s.

Either way, he is currently the town’s leading gambler.

SHOP TALK: The big-name producer recently called the agent of the big-name actor and said, “What’s he getting per movie these days?”

“A million five,” the agent said.

“I’ve got a fabulous script for him,” the producer said. “It’s the role of a lifetime, I’ll give him two million.”

“Send it over.”

Thirty pages into the script, the agent shook his head and called the star.

“It’s junk, the worst garbage I’ve ever read. What do you want to do?”

“Just tell him, ‘We’re too busy right now, thanks anyway,’ ” the star said.

The agent called the big-name producer and gave him the bad news, then slipped the manuscript into an envelope and mailed it back.

Two weeks later, the same script reappeared in the agent’s mail. Attached was a note from the producer’s assistant:

“Thank you for the enclosed submission, but it does not fit in with our current plans.”

ILIAD AND ODDITY: Rospo Pallenberg, the writer on John Boorman’s “Excalibur” and “The Emerald Forest,” is moving into the director’s chair for New World Pictures.

New World President Robert Rehme said Pallenberg has been working on two robot adventure scripts and will begin directing one, currently untitled, this fall.

The story, described by Pallenberg as a “hyperkinetic ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ” is about a robot who successfully vies with his human master for the love of a woman. It will cost about $10 million, Rehme said.

Pallenberg said Rehme approached him six months ago and suggested that he write and direct a robot adventure. Pallenberg came up with eight ideas; Rehme bought two.

Pallenberg wrote the first himself and conceived and co-wrote the second, “The Last Man on Earth,” an unrelated story about a robot revolution.

“The Emerald Forest,” which opened to mostly good reviews Wednesday, gets mixed reviews from Pallenberg, who acknowledged that he and Boorman “are slightly on the outs” over it.

“It’s about 70% of the script,” he said. “I weighted it more toward drama and adventure, John leaned more toward anthropology. I thought the anthropology dragged it down.”

Pallenberg is currently juggling writing assignments. Besides the robot scripts, he’s adapting three books of classic Greek mythology, including “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey,” into a seven-hour miniseries for David L. Wolper.

“It’s my savage soap opera,” Pallenberg said.

From Greek gods to robots, with a 12th-Century stop at King Arthur’s court . . . Pallenberg is showing quite a range.

“I do seem to be getting around, don’t I?”