Carolco Pirate Film Navigates Financial Reefs : Movies: Impresario Mario Kassar has risen from the ashes before, but industry observers wonder if his troubled ‘Cutthroat Island’ will ever see the big screen.

Bringing “Cutthroat Island” to the big screen may be the toughest feat yet attempted by impresario Mario Kassar, a cinematic Houdini who has made his reputation escaping from tight spots.

On Friday, however, director Renny Harlin and female lead Geena Davis headed to Malta for the Oct. 31 shoot on the assumption that the Carolco Pictures’ chief will, once again, pull it off.

Carolco, a high-profile independent production company founded in 1976 by Kassar and his former partner, Andy Vajna, is teetering on the brink of extinction and is badly in need of a massive cash infusion. Trading has been halted since Wednesday after stock plummeted to a 52-week low.

Having sunk $15 million of its paltry reserves into “Cutthroat” pre-production, Carolco is now negotiating with distribution partner MGM to sell off Paul Verhoeven’s soon-to-shoot “Showgirls.” It hopes to raise an additional $20 million to keep “Cutthroat” alive.

The fate of “Cutthroat,” which is budgeted at $75 million, is critical to Carolco both practically and psychologically. “The company will take a big hit if the movie shuts down,” notes one industry analyst. “Besides, this is the film that tells the Hollywood community Carolco is back.”

Carolco declined to comment.

According to documents filed by Carolco this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the necessary production loans for the pirate adventure are not expected until late this year. The documents stated that unless Carolco can sell the rights to “Showgirls,” finalize the foreign pre-sales contracts crucial to getting the loans, and obtain a completion bond guaranteeing against budget overruns, “Cutthroat Island” has no chance of staying afloat and the company itself could go under.

The movie tells the story of a black-hearted pirate, a dashing gambler and a feisty maiden set on the 1650s high seas. Sources close to the film suggest that at least the latter two elements characterize the production itself.

Kassar, for starters, is an inveterate gambler. In the early days of Carolco, he and Vajna sold international rights to films before betting big on “First Blood,” the first of the successful “Rambo” trilogy that put the company on the map. Doling out double-digit salaries to A-list talent, they almost single-handedly raised the cost of filmmaking in Hollywood. Still, the payoff was there. Carolco’s “Terminator 2” took in $490 million worldwide to become the highest-grossing movie of 1991. The following year, the company’s controversial thriller “Basic Instinct” achieved the same distinction, with a $353-million worldwide gross.

Massive overhead, a penchant for the high life and poor business decisions, however, ultimately took a toll. With the exception of the 1993 hit “Cliffhanger,” the company was in virtual exile for two years until its foreign partners--Japan’s Pioneer, France’s Canal Plus and Credit Lyonnais and Italy’s RCS--kicked in $112.5 million last October. That provided, however, only a temporary lease on life.

Kassar first approached Michael Douglas about doing “Cutthroat Island” at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival, but the actor turned him down. Later, however, tired of portraying what he calls “the Prince of Darkness” in such films as “Wall Street” and “Falling Down,” he decided to sign on.

Enter the “feisty maiden”--Geena Davis--who was both the female lead and future wife of Renny Harlin. While Douglas was hoping “Cutthroat” would be a cross between “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Romancing the Stone,” Davis was reportedly envisioning a female pirate movie along the lines of “Mistress of the Seas”--in which she was to have starred until Columbia pulled the plug last year.

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Sources say Davis’ ongoing push for more screen time--not to mention the fact she was married to the director--created a no-win situation for Douglas, who dropped out in June.

“Geena is very smart and opinionated--known for delivering voluminous notes on a script,” says a producer. “Harlin is stubborn and headstrong. That doesn’t leave much room for an actor.”

Not so, Douglas insists. Though Davis (who is said to be getting upward of $5 million for the role) partly drew on her characterization in “Mistress of the Seas,” she never tried to make the movie her own, he says. And Harlin, aware of the complexities of directing his wife, reassured Douglas he’d make him comfortable and secure.

“The balance between the male and female parts never changed,” says Douglas. “It just took longer to develop my character. I have no problem with strong female protagonists . . . they’re present in most of my films. The issue was that there was only a week or so between wrapping (Barry Levinson’s) ‘Disclosure,’ in which I appear in every scene, and the start of the ‘Cutthroat’ shoot. I did ‘War of the Roses’ six days after ‘Black Rain’ and really got burned.”

Actors ranging from Daniel Day-Lewis to Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes turned the part down before Matthew Modine (“And the Band Played On”) came aboard. Though the actor’s $1.5-million salary--considerably less than the $12 million Douglas was to have commanded--helped the bottom line, industry analysts suggest that casting him makes foreign sales more difficult. International distributors who initially picked up the movie on the basis of Douglas’ name are now being offered an actor who’s virtually unknown overseas. And no Geena Davis film has taken off abroad.

“They’re banking on the fact that small stars become big stars--sometimes overnight,” says one executive, referring to Modine. “Look at Keanu Reeves in ‘Speed.’ ”

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The big question is whether the loans will come in soon enough--and be sizable enough--to carry a film this big. Especially since Harlin--in the face of complicated special effects and uncooperative weather--went $23 million over budget on “Die Hard 2.” A line producer on “Cutthroat” has already been fired and sources say that Harlin--as a producer as well as the director--may be hard to rein in.

The newly revived MGM is taking a wait-and-see approach, hoping the film will be a “tent pole” around which next summer’s slate can be built. A source insists that the studio put up a percentage of “Cutthroat’s” production budget, but others close to MGM say its sole commitment is to advertising and prints.

Skeptics--and there are many--doubt that “Cutthroat” will be made. No completion bond company, they say, will insure against budgetary overage on a project tainted with an “air of trouble.” And it remains to be seen how long the equity partners will hang in.

“Kassar has held a house of cards together that a gust of wind should have blown apart,” says entertainment lawyer David Colden. “But, it’s been 18 months since Carolco’s last blockbuster and the company’s overhead is sky high. Their partners may just say, ‘Enough of this bloodletting.’ ”

Still, Kassar’s defenders caution not to count the man out. A consummate showman with an insatiable appetite for risk as well as excess, Kassar has risen from the ashes time and again.

“When someone like Mario takes chances and gets into trouble, the Establishment takes pot-shots,” Douglas observes. “But independent producers are an endangered species. It’s not in the interest of the industry to lose them.”