Life Inside Mickey's New Mini : Yes, Joe Roth was a studio honcho. Then he left Fox to start a new production company, Caravan Pictures. So was it a big comedown? Nope. Actually it sounds like rolling out movies from a mini-studio on the Disney lot means a lot less aspirin

By PATRICK GOLDSTEIN

Oct. 31, 1993 12 AM PT

<i> Patrick Goldstein is a frequent contributor to Calendar</i>

Caravan Pictures founder Joe Roth is watching dailies from his just-started Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte movie when his office buzzes him--it’s time for a 3 p.m. meeting with director Nick Castle, who wants to pitch a musical-comedy project called “Herald Square.”

Roth and his producing partner, Roger Birnbaum, hurry downstairs to their second-floor offices in the Animation Building on the Disney Studios lot in Burbank. They are greeted by four cheery actor types, dressed in identical 1940s-style theater usher outfits, complete with shiny gold buttons, black epaulets and boxy red caps.

Roth has the look of a man who has suddenly been transported into a lost scene from “Barton Fink.” Castle is nowhere in sight. It’s just an attention-grabbing script delivery, complete with a portable tape deck and a cassette of six musical numbers.

The ushers break into a song-and-dance routine. “ Yoooooou !” they harmonize to an old show tune. “ Yoooooou could be a movie hero! That’s right, yooooooou could be the hero of your own movie company! Listen to the Walkman, CAA will love to talk, man!”

When you run a movie studio, there’s little time for laughs. When you’re a producer, you’re casting a broader net--there’s time for anyone who might have a good idea.

Life has changed for Roth since he resigned as chairman of 20th Century Fox in November to form Caravan Pictures, a production company financed and distributed by Disney where Roth has a mandate to make 25 films during the next five years.

In fact, by Christmas, 1994, he expects to have as many as 10 films in release, kicking off this Nov. 12 with a remake of “The Three Musketeers,” which stars Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Oliver Platt and Chris O’Donnell. The volume is closer to that of a mini-studio than a production company. And Roth is in the unusual position of green-lighting his own pictures.

Yet Roth still feels like a man who’s leaped off the assembly line. He doesn’t have 2,000 employees to worry about anymore--he has a staff of only 15.

“It’s great to know that if I don’t call anybody back till after 5 p.m. today, the world won’t end,” he says. Roth even has time to leave work early each Wednesday to coach his 9-year-old son’s 4 p.m. soccer practice.

“Running a studio, all you can do is react,” says the 45-year-old executive, who has earned a reputation in Hollywood as a savvy competitor with loads of good-guy charm.

“There are so many meetings, so much else going on, that it’s just dumb luck to be sitting in the room when Dale Launer pitches you ‘My Cousin Vinny’ or Ron Shelton comes in with ‘White Men Can’t Jump,’ ” he says, referring to two hits from his tenure at Fox.

After spending more than a decade as both a director and a producer--Roth ran Morgan Creek Productions for several years before taking over at Fox--he felt too distant from the filmmaking front lines. He was dealing with long-term planning while Birnbaum, then Fox’s president of production, handled more of the studio’s daily film affairs.

“One day, Roger would be in the office, talking about a script, and the next minute he’s saying, ‘We’ve got a rough cut,’ ” Roth says with a frown. “And I kept thinking, ‘I missed the part where they made the movie!’ ”

Roth says his deal with Disney allows him total control over his films as long as they don’t cost more than $30 million. So far, Caravan has only two movies pushing the limit: “The Three Musketeers” and the project with high-salaried movie stars Roberts and Nolte, a romantic comedy called “I Love Trouble.” The rest of its roster, Roth says, consists of films in the $10-million to $20-million range.

Having spent hundreds of hours together, watching dailies during their days at Fox, Roth and Birnbaum have evolved into a tightly knit producing team. They have connecting offices, drive identical black 750il BMWs and are in such exact sync about their filmmaking philosophy that they often jump in and finish each other’s sentences.

Their style is genial, self-deprecating informality. Birnbaum favors jeans and sneakers. Roth wears slacks and loafers, which he often kicks off and slides across the floor in the midst of meetings.

Roth has long been a media darling, though he is sometimes too eager to please. He invited a reporter along on his visit to the “I Love Trouble” set, only to hastily rescind the offer when Roberts’ handlers vetoed the idea at the actress’s request.

At Fox, Roth and Birnbaum made an unusually wide variety of films. Some hit pay dirt (the two “Home Alone” films, “The Last of the Mohicans,” “Sleeping With the Enemy,” “Hot Shots” and “My Cousin Vinny”). Others were expensive flops (“Toys,” “Hoffa,” “For the Boys,” “Shining Through”). But even during the cold streaks, Roth projected such convincing optimism that Fox largely avoided the press sniping suffered by other studios.

How close was the perception to reality? Industry observers are divided, but most agree that once you add the megabuck franchise “Home Alone” to the mix, Roth gets above-average marks for his tenure at Fox. The studio never achieved the consistent success of Warner Bros. but never suffered the prolonged dry spells experienced by Paramount, Universal and MGM/UA.

At Caravan, the range of films will be considerably narrower, with more emphasis on feel-good comedy and family entertainment. In fact, Roth says, he would like to use the “Walt Disney Presents” logo on as many Caravan films as possible.

Roth and Birnbaum say they’re looking for low-budget, concept-driven films that share one key ingredient--emotional clarity.

“At the end of every discussion Roger and I have, we’ll always ask, ‘Do we feel something?’ ” Roth says. “I don’t think movies are an intellectual medium. When you go to a movie you want an emotional experience.”

Birnbaum chimes in: “To get people to see a film, they have to know what they’re going to get. Your message can’t be vague.”

So how do you know when it works? The partners cite an example from their days at Fox, an early “Home Alone” test screening, held in a grungy, working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Chicago.

“It was a tough crowd,” Birnbaum recalls. Roth adds, laughing: “I was sitting next to a skinhead. I turned to Roger and I said, ‘We’re dead.’ ”

At a particularly poignant moment near the end of the film, Roth sneaked a glance at his skinhead neighbor. “It was amazing,” he says. “His eyes were full of tears. Now that’s when you know you have some real emotion in your movie.”

Roth is vying with dozens of other top producers for A-list talent and scripts. But he has a huge competitive advantage--he once ran a film studio.

“How often does it help?” he says. “Only a trillion times. It’s invaluable. When you’re a producer, you might have two or three experiences in the course of a year with certain agents or lawyers or powerbrokers. But when you’re running a studio, you interact with them every day.”

Birnbaum puts it more bluntly: “When you’re running a studio, you can pick up the phone and get any filmmaker or actress right away--because they know you can make a movie.”

Once you’ve actually made a movie, especially a successful movie with someone, the relationship is cemented even more deeply. Roth’s biggest hit at Fox was “Home Alone,” which like its sequel was directed by Chris Columbus, who also is at the helm of the upcoming “Mrs. Doubtfire,” a Robin Williams film that Roth initiated before he left Fox.

So when the Caravan producers take Columbus to lunch, the occasion is marked by an easy camaraderie.

Only once does Roth get down to business, casually asking Columbus what film he would like to make next. The director says he’s completely up in the air.

Roth gently probes: “Are you looking to do something big? A drama? A comedy?”

Columbus is noncommittal and Roth doesn’t press the issue, but he still considers the get-together a success.

“Chris knows that the next time we talk, it won’t be a frivolous call,” Roth says later. “He’ll know that we’re coming to him with a project geared specifically for him. Who knows whether he’ll like it or not, but at least he’ll take it seriously.”

Roth brings to Disney something sorely missing at the studio in recent years--a wealth of close relationships with top-level talent. Roberts is starring in “I Love Trouble” largely because of a friendship formed with Roth while she made a pair of movies for him at Fox--the $100-million hit “Sleeping With the Enemy” and box-office dud “Dying Young.”

With “Three Musketeers,” Roth drew both on his relationships--and his cagey, killer instinct. Eager to make the film, Disney found itself contending with several similar projects, most notably a TriStar entry that Jeremiah Chechik was attached to direct. When the going got tough, Disney put the project in Roth’s lap.

“They needed to make a statement that said we’re serious about doing this,” Roth recalls. “It wasn’t so much getting us to produce it as it was getting talent for it.”

Roth got quick commitments from Sutherland and Sheen, who had starred in “Young Guns,” which Roth produced at Morgan Creek and Fox released. As Roth puts it: “That sent a message to the other studio--and to the creative community--that we were on a fast track to make the picture.”

Taking no chances, he sent an emissary to Europe who tagged every available period costume, forcing potential competitors to make their costumes from scratch. Soon afterward, TriStar ran up the white flag, dropping its project.

“You know what was a nice bonus?” Roth says, flashing a cocky grin. “When the TriStar version fell apart, it made Jeremiah Chechik available, so we hired him to direct ‘Tall Tale.’ ”

When it comes to business, this is a guy who plays for keeps.

“You know, when I go out on the soccer field with my kid, I want him to learn and to enjoy himself,” Roth says. “But let me tell you--I want him to win.”

Having run a studio, he also knows the value of bracing straight talk.

When Rob Weiss, the hot young director of “Amongst Friends,” shows up for a pitch meeting at Caravan, you would think he’d get the customary schmoozy greeting. Instead, Roth instantly puts him in his place.

“What’s happened since I last saw you?” he growls when Weiss walks in the door. “You got this seven-picture deal, but you’re not shooting.”

The gruff hello poses a shrewd, if unspoken, question: How happy could you be with your deal at Universal if you still haven’t gotten a film off the ground?

Joined by two cronies, one a writer with a tattoo on his forearm, the other a producer type with long, wavy hair, Weiss launches into a rambling pitch for a family drama. “It’s ‘Ordinary People’ for the ‘90s, a totally scarred family,” says Weiss, who wears the maverick filmmaker look of torn jeans, goatee and baseball cap.

Roth and Birnbaum seem intrigued by the tale, especially by the mix of characters. However, they are concerned by the absence of a strong story structure. Once it’s established that the team is open to using a co-writer, Roth suggests screenwriter Barbara Benedek (“The Big Chill”), who is, he emphasizes, a good collaborator.

Birnbaum explores more practical matters. “What’s your agenda out there?” he asks Weiss. “Is this the next film for you, if we were ready to make it?”

The young director hedges, saying he has other projects in development but would direct whatever was ready first. The meeting then breaks up, but not before Roth scores one last point.

Weiss tells Roth how much he enjoyed “Coupe de Ville,” a 1990 father-and-sons drama Roth directed just before taking over at Fox. “You should direct again,” Weiss says. “I loved all the family stuff in that movie.”

Birnbaum cringes in mock horror: “Don’t encourage him!” But the point is easily made--Weiss is dealing with an executive with hands-on experience behind the camera. As Weiss gets up to leave, he eyes Birnbaum’s maroon “Three Musketeers” sweat shirt.

“Hey, that’s nice,” he says.

Score another point for Caravan. Birnbaum pulls the sweat shirt over his head and hands it to Weiss. “Here, take it,” he says with a delighted grin. “We’ve got more.”

Albert Hughes, one of the brash 21-year-old twins who made the violent urban drama “Menace II Society,” is telling Roth about taking a young woman to see Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence.”

“She said the only reason she wanted to stay was to see if they were going to (expletive),” Hughes explains. “And I told her, ‘I got news--they ain’t going to (expletive), baby.’ ”

Roth is curious. “So why did you go?”

“ ‘Cause of Scorsese,” Hughes answers. “He’s the greatest. I wanted to see what he did with the camera.”

Hughes and his brother, Allen, are updating Roth on their next film, “Public Enemiez,” their first project under a newly signed production deal with Caravan. Roth’s biggest concern is whether the movie can be ready to start shooting in January, which would allow Caravan to release it in August, a popular month for urban youth films.

It was Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg who first tried to recruit the Hughes twins.

“I flipped over ‘Menace II Society, but there was no way I could get over their concerns about being at Disney,” he recalls. “So Joe was able to close (the deal) where I couldn’t.”

Several of Caravan’s other projects, most notably “The Three Musketeers” and “I Love Trouble,” were already in development at Disney when Roth came on board. “They were at the 20-yard line, but Joe took them over the goal line,” Katzenberg says. “He’s already exceeded everybody’s expectations. He’s done things with these projects that we couldn’t do.”

Many industry observers see Roth as a crucial addition to the studio’s creative team.

“Disney is desperate to change their image,” says one prominent producer. “Outside of their animated films, it’s been a terrible past two years. They just can’t make another Richard Dreyfuss-meets-Bette Midler-in-the-park picture. Having Joe there is a way to shake things up.”

Roth brings to Disney a reputation for marketing savvy and collaborative decision-making.

“Joe would be a great manager--I’d go into business with him in a second,” says Delores Robinson, whose management clients include Wesley Snipes and Rosie Perez. “He spotted Wesley early and always hung in there with him. He doesn’t just try to sell you everything. He cares about your client and their career as much as his project.” Roth cast Snipes in his directorial debut, 1986’s “Streets of Gold,” and then later in Fox’s “Rising Sun.”

Writer-director Ron Shelton, who made “White Men Can’t Jump” at Fox, says he enjoyed the most creative freedom of his career with Roth.

“With Joe, there were no committee decisions, no bureaucracy,” Shelton says. “Yes was yes, no was no. If I felt I was going to go over schedule, instead of getting into a row with a dozen production people, I could call Joe directly and in two minutes everything was solved.”

International Creative Management agent Elaine Goldsmith, whose star client Roberts has a first-look production deal at Caravan, also gives Roth high marks: “Joe knows how to solve a problem. When the trailer wasn’t working on Julia’s film ‘Sleeping With the Enemy,’ Joe re-cut it himself--and did an incredible job.”

Despite these testimonials, Hollywood skeptics wonder how long the honeymoon between Roth and Disney will last, especially if Caravan experiences a prolonged box-office slump.

“If Joe isn’t successful out of the box, it’s only a matter of time before Disney starts interfering--it’s in their nature,” says one filmmaker who had an unhappy experience making a picture there.

Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner bristles at the idea of any Disney interference with Roth’s autonomy.

“We deal with people in a collegial way,” he insists. “What you’ve heard about our company and issues of freedom and autonomy is a lot of hot air. With the stakes as high as they are in the film business, you work with people.”

Actually, most of Caravan’s early projects fit neatly into the Disney realm of family filmmaking, drawing on talent culled from recent Disney projects.

For now, Roth is steering a conservative course. One day, as he watches dailies from an upcoming remake of “Angels in the Outfield,” he is asked why he chose to revive the obscure 1951 fantasy movie. His answer offers a glimpse of Caravan’s commercial vision--to make films that stir emotions but still function as upbeat entertainment.

“I really responded to the use of an acceptable genre, like comedy, as a way to convey a story with hopeful survival life lessons,” he explains. “To make a successful movie, it’s critical that the deeper themes be there. But it’s just as critical that they may be masked by humor.”

Roth falls silent for a moment as he watches a scene from the film play on the screen.

“What makes the story so powerful for me is that it has characters who heal themselves,” he says simply. “It gives you a feeling that there’s hope in the world.”*