Par finds 'Virus' a little too realistic

GOOD MORNING: Truth is indeed stranger than -- movie fiction. F'rinstance, producer Gale Anne Hurd, at Par filming "Going West in America," which Rysher finances fully ($30 million) and distribs internationally, is awaiting the studio's greenlight for "Virus." It's based on the Dark Horse comic strip about a computer virus. And Hurd tells me there's been a virus attack in the computers at Par! "It affected a lot of information in the hard disk storage. It affected some of our files as well. Luckily we had ours hard printed out so we now have to put it back into a computer that is virus-free"... Included among her upcoming pic plans is a feature based on Marvel Comics' "Incredible Hulk." This is larger-budgeted than the $30 million that's standard for the previously noted Hurd pics. She says, "I would like to stay out of the $100 million range. But I'd like mine to have that look. It's almost embarrassing to spend $100 million on a movie today when people can't get fed or clothed." Her other upcoming projects include "Freeze" for Mandalay, and "Gargoyles" for Par -- about gargoyles in N.Y. coming to life. She is talking to Rysher's Keith Samples for more "thrillers, action-adventure movies -- especially for their foreign rights. It's especially noteworthy when you realize a movie like 'Die Hard With a Vengeance' did $100 million domestically and $250 million foreign"... Hurd's current "Going West in America" just returned from Red Cliff, Colo., at 10,000 foot altitude. They started in February with a 100-year record snow; it was immediately followed by 70-degree weather, melting the established snow! They needed one snow scene for the final day, or else (enormously expensive) digital snowfalls would have had to be created -- and the company awakened to find snow falling. There is a movie God up there! The company's now back in L.A. with Danny Glover, Dennis Quaid, Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey and debut director Jeb Stuart filming in Hancock Park.

"I RESPECT THEIR SENTIMENTS," Sidney Poitier told me of South Africa's Performing Arts Workers Equity and its objections to his playing Nelson Mandela in the upcoming Showtime vidpic co-starring Michael Caine. Daily Variety's Bryan Pearson, reporting from Johannesburg, reported in Tuesday's paper that the PAWE said, "We believe that actors do exist in this country who are capable of playing Mandela with greater truth." Poitier, no stranger to South Africa (he worked there in 1950 in the first "Cry, the Beloved Country") or to Mandela, told me, "It is my belief they have talented actors and eventually will have an army of talented filmmakers. But you have to raise the money and you have to think not only of the excellence of the actors but the practicability of the actors involved. In the meanwhile, I respect their sentiments. He (Mandela) is the president of their young country and they have a young film industry. If I can be of any service to them, I would be happy to do so, but it would be presumptive of me to do so (without being asked)." Meanwhile, he leaves April 17 for South Africa, and says, "I am going to be playing him anyway"... Happy 80th birthday to the San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. It's hard to believe he's been doing it 58 years, having started his column July 5, 1938, when he was 22! "I was hired by editor Paul C. Smith, 27-years-old -- he had copy boys older than him! He told me what to do: 'Be entertaining and be short.' I've been trying to do it ever since." Caen and I saw each other at Elaine's in N.Y. one night, and when I introduced him to my wife Selma and my daughter Mandy, Herb told them, "Can you believe it, the two of us have been writing columns for 100 years (I'd celebrated my 42nd anni) -- and neither of us has ever made a mistake!" Big laughs all around. I told him I could never, would never try to equal his record.

SEAN PENN, WHO WAS UNWILLING to leave the bedside of Robin Wright, who recently underwent surgery, in order to attend the Oscars, now felt secure enough to attend the presentation Monday night of the Edwin Booth Award to his mentor, Hal Holbrook, receiving the nod for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater. The benefit, at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel for Interact Theater, raised close to $100,000 ... Saul Turteltaub, past entertainment division chairman of the United Jewish Fund, was honored in pre-dinner ceremonies toasting Leah Rabin at the BevHilton, where $5 million was raised ... Sybil Brand is honored on her 94th birthday May 3 at the BevHills Crystal Room by the Jeffrey Foundation, with Steve Allen as m.c. ... Loni Anderson and Mary Hart are honored by the L.A. Chapter of Childhelp USA April 22 at the Century Plaza ... Margaret Cho and Ellen DeGeneres host AIDS Project L.A.'s AIDS Dance-A-Thon April 27, when the Village People will perform at Universal Studios Hollywood ... Michael Crawford starts his second year (of his three-year pact) starring in "EFX" at the MGM Grand,where he was chosen Vegas' best singer in the Review-Journal/Sun readers' poll ... After seven years of marriage, Mel Harris and Cotter Smith have agreed to separate.