REAL MONEY

Robert Townsend can put away his credit cards--Warner Bros. has extended his credit.

“Hollywood Shuffle,” writer-director-star-fund-raiser Townsend’s $100,000 spoof of Tinseltown’s treatment of black actors and film makers largely financed with his plastic cash, has earned him and “Shuffle” co-writer Keenen Ivory Wayans a multi-pic deal with the studio.

First in line from the new partnership will be “Heartbeat.” Wayans, currently writing the screenplay with Townsend, calls it “a romantic-musical-comedy about the rise and fall of a singing group patterned after the Temptations.”

The budget’s a tad higher this time around--”tentatively $8 million.”