THREE-WAY TEAM SET UP FOR ‘CHINATOWN’ SEQUEL

The blueprint for “Two Jakes,� the long-discussed sequel to the 1974 thriller “Chinatown,� is finally complete.

The returning principals--actor Jack Nicholson, screenwriter Robert Towne and producer Robert Evans--holed up at Nicholson’s Aspen, Colo., home last weekend to finalize an independent production deal that offers a new model for studio sponsorship of movies with high-priced talent. The film is slated to begin shooting in April for release next Christmas by Paramount Pictures.

Nicholson, in addition to reprising his role as L.A. gumshoe Jake Gittes, will produce the film with Evans. Evans, in addition to producing, will co-star as Nicholson’s nemesis, real estate heavy Jake Berman. Towne, who wrote the original, will also direct this time (replacing Roman Polanski).

Towne’s finished script for “Two Jakes� is set in 1948, which is 11 years after the end of its predecessor. The battleground for the new detective yarn is the same suburban land annexed to the city during the cataclysmic events of “Chinatown.� But where “Chinatown� explored the relationship between water and political power in early Los Angeles, “Two Jakes� grapples with the role of land and oil during L.A.’s post-World War II boom days.

Nicholson, Evans, Towne and executive producer Frank Mancuso Jr. are functioning as a film-making collective. They are being paid nothing for their work, gambling instead on hefty owners’ shares of the box-office receipts. The forsaken salaries (Nicholson alone commands about $5 million a picture) cuts the budget by about half, making what would have been a commercially risky project viable for Paramount.

There’ll be additional budget savings because “Two Jakes� is technically an independent production. Paramount will acquire and pay for the production after filming--a so-called negative pickup deal--thereby cutting out the standard 12%-15% overhead.

For the film-making team, the arrangement means creative autonomy. That’s an especially strong concern for Evans, in the wake of well-publicized battles on “The Cotton Club,� and Towne, who fought producer David Geffen while directing “Personal Best.�

The film makers emphasize that the financial setup stemmed only from their desire, and Paramount’s, to see “Two Jakes� produced. The unusual partnership circumvented the web of lawyers, managers and agents who would have had to negotiate complicated deals with the studio. “We realized that we would have had to spend more time and effort making the deal than the movie,� says Mancuso, whom Evans brought on board last summer.

Evans, who recently returned from a slim-down trip to Tahiti, will be making his first film appearance since 1959 in “The Best of Everything.� (He prefers to be remembered as the bullfighter in “The Sun Also Rises.�) No female lead has been selected.

“Two Jakes� is actually Part Two of what Nicholson, an art buff, refers to as Towne’s L.A. “triptych.� The third saga is set in the late ‘50s. “I don’t think of (“Two Jakes�) as a sequel since it’s all part of the same story,� says Towne. “It’s about the things that people have traditionally been greedy over, the things that have shaped, and misshaped, this city.�

STUDIO SHUFFLE: The industry is still reacting to Monday’s news that MGM/UA is splitting into two production companies with one distribution arm.

No net increase in movie production is expected, since MGM, still under President Frank Yablans, and United Artists, under newly appointed President Alan Ladd Jr., will have the same collective budget that MGM/UA had. So why the move? According to the most popular line of speculation, MGM/UA would have had difficulty moving out Yablans. Yablans’ relationship with producer Dino De Laurentiis is also a vital peg in the studio’s upcoming release schedule.

Ladd’s appointment sets up the possibility that the executive team of the once-lofty Ladd Co. will be reassembled under the UA banner. Both MGM/UA Chairman Frank Rothman and Ladd indicate that Yablans’ current production chief, Ladd Co. alumnus Jay Kanter, is likely to move over to UA. There are rumors that Columbia marketing and distribution chief Ashley Boone, another alum, could also wind up back with Ladd. Boone said Tuesday that he’s staying put.

FAMILY TIES: There’s something about Oscar gold that brings out that special feeling of family togetherness.

“The Stone Boy,� which starred 13-year-old Jason Presson with Robert Duvall and Glenn Close, won critical raves but was such a commerical flop that distributor 20th Century Fox isn’t promoting it for Oscars. So Ron Presson, Jason’s actor father, rented out the Four Star theater Saturday to show the film to academy voters; Duvall even flew in from New York.

Jason is hardly desperate for work: “Stone Boy� got him a four-picture deal with Paramount, incluing a lead role in Joe Dante’s currently shooting “Explorers.� ’I’m really less concerned about nominations than getting the film a little attention,� says Ron Presson. ‘I just feel that the little guy did such a good job.�

Then there’s the father-and son-directing team of Carl and Rob Reiner, responsible for “All of Me� and “This Is Spinal Tap,� respectively. Both films wound up on critic Judith Crist’s Best 10 list. Poppa and son Reiner were so proud of each other that they chipped in for ad in the Hollywood Reporter on Friday.

“When has this ever happened in the history of the world?� asks the ad. “NEVER!� (But just in case it has, the Reiners note at the bottom of the ad that their claim was “Not Extensively Researched.�)

BOX OFFICE: “Beverly Hills Cop� rolled up another $6.4 million to pace an otherwise tepid weekend at the nation’s theaters. “The River� dropped sharply in its second week of wide release for a second-place $1.7 million. MGM/UA’s “That’s Dancing!� debuted to a stumbling $1.5 million at 906 theaters.