Stars Cashing In On Hollywood Spending Frenzy

Hollywood has gone crazy in the past week signing stars to huge contracts:

Confounding expectations, Columbia Pictures has managed to close its deal for Harrison Ford to star in “Devil’s Own” for somewhere between $18 million and $20 million. While studio sources were unable to give an exact figure, they said Ford would receive close to $20 million but definitely not more than that.

Sources said one reason the up-front total for Ford was less than the amount such stars as Jim Carrey, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone have received is that Ford gets a tremendous share of the box office pie. In recent films, Ford has drawn as much as 15 percent or 17 percent of the gross - the amount the studio receives from all revenue streams including theatrical, video, network, cable and pay TV.

Ford’s costar, Brad Pitt, will get from $8 million to $10 million.

“Devil’s Own” is about a member of the Irish Republican Army who moves into the home of a New York City cop played by Ford.

Jim Carrey has committed to Imagine Entertainment’s “Liar, Liar” for $20 million, which is what he is receiving for Columbia Pictures’ “Cable Guy.”

Perhaps of even greater importance for the actor - whose rise to the top of the film comedy world has been meteoric - “Liar, Liar” presents Carrey with an opportunity to expand his horizons by playing a more serious role, albeit in a comedy. “Liar, Liar” concerns a lawyer and inveterate liar who desperately tries to grant his young son’s wish that he not lie for a 24-hour period.

In the richest multipicture pact for an actor, Universal Pictures has signed Sylvester Stallone to a three-picture deal worth $60 million. Stallone, preparing for his role in Universal’s “Daylight,” has agreed to star in three more Universal films for $20 million apiece, sources said.

In “Daylight,” Stallone plays an emergency medical services worker who must rescue victims after a tanker truck explodes in New York’s Holland Tunnel.

In a deal reportedly worth slightly less than $10 million, Alicia Silverstone - the 18-year-old actress whose appearance in “Clueless” has cemented her position as one of the hottest young faces in Hollywood - will star in two pictures and enter into a three-year, first-look producing arrangement with Columbia Pictures.

The first picture that Silverstone will star in under the deal will be “Excess Baggage,” a comedy about a woman who stages her own kidnapping.