What does the public want?

los angeles: slowly, cautiously, hollywood has turned back to the business of making movies --and finding it tough going. after delaying the release of several films that deal directly with terrorism, movie executives from burbank to culver city have been weighing what new projects to give the precious green light, and they are, at least temporarily, stumped.what will the american public want to see? action? romance? light humor? after providing a steady diet of violent thrills and pumped-up vulgarity for years, the studios seem certain only that movies will have to adjust to a public stunned into somber reflection. but how? "it's a difficult, unanswerable question right now," says mitch kreindel, a publicist at dreamworks, which is worried about its upcoming prison revolt drama, the last castle, starring robert redford. "is the public emotionally prepared to accept it? that's the question with every movie. is escapism in? or is action in? ... who knows where people will land?" last weekend audiences started returning to the cineplex, with the box office jumping 25 percent from the same weekend last year as three new movies opened: the thriller don't say a word, the light comedy zoolander and the drama hearts in atlantis. still, for the moment, many studios are choosing to do nothing. sony has suspended plans for a jennifer lopez thriller called tick-tock, about a man suffering from amnesia who is a prime suspect in a series of terrorist bombings. in a city where a year ago there was a frantic drive to shoot movies in anticipation of an entertainment industry strike, there is a sudden calm. some might call it near paralysis. sony has no movies in production until the end of this year; last year in the fourth quarter it had nine. warner bros. has three movies in production; last year at this time it had 15. other major studios have similarly sparse schedules. "i've been thinking about it for a couple weeks, but i don't have any idea in terms of what to pitch," confesses producer helena echegoyan. "studios in general tend to go for the broad stroke, not only in the movies they make but in the perception of the things that they buy. and the broad-strokes conclusion here will be that people will want happy movies." marketing strategists are examining publicity campaigns for upcoming films and considering adjustments that will take out that once-sought-after element, "edge." publicity for the recent keanu reeves baseball movie, hardball, was shifted from inner-city grittiness to the story's inspirational elements. in some measure the current lack of activity is a result of last year's frenzy. studios have enough movies in the can to hold off making immediate production decisions. but the main cause is that there seems no clear way to predict the public mood a year or two from now, when movies made today will be released. "it's hard to compare this to anything that's happened. historically, it's just not pearl harbor, sorry," says elizabeth daley, dean of the university of southern california school of cinema-television, who consults frequently with the movie industry's power elite. "people are just stunned, and it's going to be very slow going to figure out what to do. you're going to see hollywood tiptoeing through this." in conflicts such as vietnam and the gulf war, movies did not immediately reflect the far-off bloodshed. the gulf war didn't last that long; vietnam helped trigger a huge cultural shift across american society, and movies came to reflect that domestic social revolution. but 60 years ago, the impact was immediate and dramatic. hollywood responded enthusiastically to government calls to make movies that would help the world war ii effort. it was more than a request. the office of war information set up a motion picture operation in hollywood, vetting scripts for patriotic themes and asking moguls to consider whether their films would help win the war. and most tried. after bowing to the prewar mood of isolationism, hollywood plunged wholeheartedly into the post-pearl harbor mood of revenge fantasy. early on, movies tended to demonize the enemy, as in "air force," about a typical air bomber crew, jeering when their bombs fell on japanese, or hitler's children, about young people forced to live lives of horror in nazi germany. every genre was keyed to the subject. in tarzan triumphs, the jungle man helps the war effort. in the invisible agent, the invisible man fights the nazis. crime films were about patriotic gangsters aiding the war effort. romantic melodrama was about the fear of separation, of losing husbands and boyfriends. casablanca became an immediate classic of intrigue, romance and danger. as the war ground on, movies evolved, reflecting the suffering and pain of battle, as in they were expendable and the story of g.i. joe. but the recent catastrophe on american soil may be too close to comfortably portray on film, while fighting likely to take place thousands of miles away may be too distant for americans to connect to on film. that doesn't mean there won't be changes, however. "i don't think there'll be anything like what we saw in the second world war period, but i do think this will cause reconsideration of kinds of stories people want to tell on-screen," says film historian richard jewell. "you're going to see some much more serious kinds of filmmaking in the next year or two than we've seen in the last two years. there will be much more realistic films made, films that attempt to cope with the ominous atmosphere that engulfs us." a consensus, however vague, is emerging on the kinds of films that will be made. graphic violence will be out for a while, say the voices of experience in hollywood. light comedy and heroic tales will be the order of the day. at the toronto film festival, which was interrupted by the terrorist attacks, the upbeat films got the most enthusiastic response, such as amelie from montmartre, a whimsical french fable about a young woman who sets her sights on being a secret do-gooder. usually, the darker, edgier films win attention.