DISNEY
1995 MARKET SHARE: 19% HITS: Toy Story, Pocahontas MISSES: Judge Dredd, Nixon BIG DEALS: Next summer's cartoon The Hunchback of Notre Dame could be Beauty and the Beast Go to Paris. And Glenn Close vamps (and camps) it up as Cruella DeVil in John Hughes' live-action 101 Dalmatians. BIG RISKS: Will Madonna prove herself a film star in the long-gestating Evita? And will James and the Giant Peach's weird, Nightmare Before Christmas-style animation please or perplex audiences? SLEEPER: Ellen DeGeneres' idiosyncratic humor could translate nicely to the big screen in Mr. Wrong.
WARNER
1995 MARKET SHARE: 16.3% HITS: Batman Forever, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls MISSES: Assassins, Fair Game BIG DEALS: Two action-packed summer releases: Speed director Jan De Bont's Twister, estimated to cost $70 million and starring Bill Paxton, Helen Hunt, and a whole lot of stormy weather; and Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to action-adventure in Eraser. BIG RISK: Kevin Costner will attempt to recapture his regular-guy appeal by taking to the golf links in Tin Cup. SLEEPER: Sharon Stone takes on another bad-girl role as the cynical mistress in a remake of the French thriller Diabolique.
SONY
1995 MARKET SHARE: 12.8% HITS: Jumanji, Bad Boys MISSES: Money Train, First Knight BIG DEALS: $20 million man Jim Carrey should draw massive crowds to the black comedy The Cable Guy; and Demi Moore takes it all off for $12.5 million in Striptease. BIG RISKS: The release of the oft-postponed Jekyll-and-Hyde horror story Mary Reilly could be scary news for Julia Roberts and John Malkovich. And on the troubled set of The Mirror Has Two Faces, director-star Barbra Streisand has already replaced her cinematographer and Dudley Moore. SLEEPER: Ricki Lake's mistaken-identity makeover in the romantic comedy Mrs. Winterbourne could play like While You Were Sleeping II.
UNIVERSAL
1995 MARKET SHARE: 12.5% HITS: Apollo 13, Casper MISSES: Village of the Damned, The Cure BIG DEALS: It's Die Hard in an underwater tunnel as Sylvester Stallone struggles to reach Daylight. And Eddie Murphy may revitalize his career by playing seven roles in a remake of The Nutty Professor. BIG RISK: Sean Connery supplies the voice for Dragonheart's ILM-created dragon, but can a computer-generated title character command the screen in a live-action film? SLEEPER: Flipper, a big-screen update of the '60s series, would love to swim in Free Willy's wake.
PARAMOUNT
1995 MARKET SHARE: 10% HITS: Congo, Clueless MISSES: Jade, Nick of Time BIG DEALS: Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible should ignite over Memorial Day weekend, and Patrick Stewart battles the Borg in Thanksgiving's Star Trek: Resurrections. BIG RISKS: The Phantom, starring Billy Zane, will either launch a franchise or disappear a la The Shadow. Shirley MacLaine will be competing against memories of Terms of Endearment in its sequel, The Evening Star. SLEEPER: Writer Winnie Holzman and director Scott Winant, both of thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, hope to strike sparks between Jeanne Tripplehorn and Dylan McDermott in 'Til There Was You.
