A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : WAITING, WAITING : All Dressed Up and No Place to Be Released

In the new trailer for Disney’s “Billy Bathgate,” a movie based on E. L. Doctorow’s bestseller about a boy who comes of age hanging out with gangster Dutch Schultz, there’s a shot of co-stars Dustin Hoffman and Nicole Kidman kissing to the tune of “Bye Bye Blackbird.”

Though Disney would like to pack up all its care and woe when it comes to the $40-million film, the movie--problematic from the start--continues to be a major headache.

The trouble began in pre-production, when planning for the monster-sized project stretched on three or four weeks longer than anticipated. In order to make a projected June release date, director Robert Benton--known as a leisurely filmmaker--was asked to come up with a rough cut of the movie in 16 weeks instead of the 22 he had bargained for. The studio concedes that the chance that it would be suitable for release was a long shot, but why not try?

What they saw, in the words of one studio insider, was “a mess”--a cut that satisfied neither Disney, Benton (who didn’t have time to shoot the ending he visualized), nor the notoriously demanding Hoffman. While some blame the interior, literary nature of the material, others question the selection of Benton--a man who, they claim, is more comfortable with kinder, gentler material (“Places in the Heart,” “Kramer vs. Kramer”) than with a violence-packed script.

Ridiculous, retorts one top-level Disney executive. “Bob (Benton) wrote ‘Bonnie and Clyde,’ so he’s no stranger to violence. And, of course, Dustin is distressed--he’s a perfectionist, distressed ever since I’ve been in the business. Though this picture has been a serious pain in the ass, don’t take that to mean it’s not creatively viable. This is not a troubled, out-of-control movie. The problems range from minor to modest . . . they’re certainly not monumental. People accuse Hollywood of making release dates--not movies. We want to give this film the time it needs so that won’t happen in this case.”

Disney optimistically predicts “Billy Bathgate” will be released late this year or early next after a couple of weeks of reshoots. Scheduling them, acknowledges the studio, has also been a handful. Kidman can’t get started until she winds up what Imagine Films is calling “the untitled Ron Howard project” in which she stars with husband Tom Cruise. Hoffman is currently immersed in “Hook,” Steven Spielberg’s retelling of the Peter Pan classic. Because that film is also well behind schedule, it may be September before the actor can put Captain Hook behind him and, once again, inhabit the role of Dutch Schultz.