Stuck on Bruck

Producer reups with Disney for 5 years

By DAVID S. COHEN

Bruckheimer

Disney has quietly signed a new five-year deal with the producer who's presently spending the bulk of the studio's production budget.

Jerry Bruckheimer is responsible for the back-to-back "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels, currently shooting. He also has eight television series on the air -- only one, however, with any involvement from Disney.

The studio is silent on financial terms, but the deal is understood to be the heftiest in Mouse House history.

Deal, which includes Bruckheimer Films but not Bruckheimer Television, covers Bruckheimer's overhead at his Santa Monica HQ. He has recently doubled the size of those offices.

Bruckheimer is exclusive with Disney for development, but when the studio declines to make one of his films, as it did with "Black Hawk Down," he is free to take the project elsewhere.

Bruckheimer-Disney pact fits new topper Robert Iger's mandate to shift the studio slate toward franchises.

The "Pirates" sequels will likely prove the most expensive project in the history of Disney Studios.

Pics have been shooting for months, with a summer break for post-production on "Pirates 2." Lensing will continue on "Pirates 3" until March.

The pics are costing at least $200 million apiece, and the total for the pair may exceed $550 million. Studio is willing to put that kind of backing behind Bruckheimer pics because he has long been a reliable producer of high-profile hits.

Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson took their shingle from Paramount to Disney in 1991.

Since then, with Simpson or solo, Bruckheimer has produced "Crimson Tide" ($159 million worldwide), "Enemy of the State" ($251 million), "The Rock" ($336 million), "Armageddon" ($555 million), "Pearl Harbor" ($450 million) and "Gone in Sixty Seconds" ($232 million).

The first "Pirates of the Caribbean" pic grossed $652 million worldwide.

Bruckheimer also produced "National Treasure" ($350 million), which is spawning a sequel.

He has Tony Scott/Denzel Washington action thriller "Deja Vu" slated to begin shooting next year -- his first pic under the new deal -- while the upcoming basketball release "Glory Road" is said to be the highest-testing Bruckheimer film ever.

On the TV side, however, the relationship became troubled in recent years. Under former chairman-CEO Michael Eisner, Disney's ABC network turned down Bruckheimer's "CSI," and when CBS ordered the show, Touchstone TV backed out of financing it.

Skein wound up being co-produced by CBS and Alliance Atlantis, and Bruckheimer moved to Warner Bros. TV when his Touchstone deal expired in 2001.

With Bruckheimer and Scott Rudin in the fold, Disney now boasts two of the industry's highest-profile producers, with Bruckheimer likely to focus on tentpoles and Rudin slotted for more highbrow material.