Films going into production: BIG COUNTRY...

Films going into production: BIG COUNTRY (Universal). Shooting in Bass Lake, Calif. Dan Aykroyd and John Candy are rival brothers-in-law who rendezvous at a resort to frolic with their spouses. Executive producer John Hughes. Producer Arne Schmidt. Director Howard Deutch. Screenwriter Hughes. Summer release.

CLARA’S HEART (Clara’s Heart). Shooting in Baltimore and Jamaica. Based on the Joseph Olshan novel, Whoopi Goldberg is a Jamaican woman who comes to live with a family on the verge of dissolution. Producer Martin Elfand. Director Robert Mulligan. Screenwriter Mark Medoff. Also stars Michael Ontkean, Kathleen Quinlan, Spalding Gray, Beverly Todd and Neil Patrick Harris.

COCKTAIL (Touchstone). Shooting in NYC, Jamaica and Toronto. Tom Cruise is a charming bartender who, after years of running around, decides to settle into a monogamous situation. Producer Scott Kroopf. Director Roger Donaldson. Screenwriter Heywood Gould. Distributor Buena Vista.

COHEN & TATE (Nelson). Shooting in Houston. Roy Scheider and Adam Baldwin play the title characters in this tale of a 12-year-old boy whose family is killed as he’s kidnaped and then taken for a cross-country ride. Producers Antony Rufus Isaacs and Jeff Young. Director/screenwriter Eric Red. Also stars Harley Cross.

MIDNIGHT RUN (Universal). Shooting in Illinois, NYC, Arizona, Nevada and California. Director Martin Brest takes on his first job since “Beverly Hills Cop” with this action-comedy starring Robert De Niro as an ex-cop turned bounty hunter who tracks an embezzler and bond jumper. Producer/director Brest. Screenwriter George Gallo.

NIGHT FALLS (D-Mar). Shooting in Gainesville, Fla. A comedy-horror film about some college graduate students, one of whom falls for a succubus (which is to say, a sensual female with demonic traits). Producer Dan Marine. Director Eric Troy Nicoleisen. Screenwriter Mitchell Ganem. Stars Audrey Landers, Brian Patrick Clarke, Bill Erwin, Ruth Buzzi, Pamela Bryant, Jim Alt and Gary Inhoff. Late spring release.

THE WINTER PEOPLE (Nelson/Castle Rock). Shooting in North Carolina. Depression-era passionate romance with Kurt Russell and Kelly McGillis as Blue Ridge Mountain folk whose affair has riled the rugged mountain clans. Producer Robert Solo. Director Ted Kotcheff. Screenwriter Carol Sobieski. Also stars Lloyd Bridges and John Russell. Distributor Columbia.