'Midnight's' hour

By VARIETY STAFF

Glitterati galore --- ranging from producer-director Clint Eastwood to novelist John Berendt --- graced the premier screening of Warner Bros.' "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" Monday night at the Steven J. Ross Theater on the studio lot.

After the screening, the film's stars --- Kevin Spacey, John Cusack, Jack Thompson, Alison Eastwood and the Lady Chablis, among them --- mingled with guests and chowed down on southern delicacies like fried green tomatoes, cornbread, hominy and crab cakes.

Other guests connected to the movie included producer Arnold Stiefel, exec producer Anita Zuckerman, co-producer Tom Rooker, scripter John Lee Hancock, composer Lennie Niehaus, and k.d. lang, who performs a haunting rendition of Mercer's "Skylark" for the pic's soundtrack.

Also there were Kevin Costner, Penny Marshall, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, Michael Stipe and Scott Weiland, and actors Ashley Judd, Greg Kinnear, Joan Cusack, Mare Winningham and John McGinley.

WB honchos included Barry Reardon, Bill Gerber, Jim Miller, Diana Rathbun, Rob Guralnick, Chris Pula, Charlotte Kandel and Sandy Reisenbach.