Clock Is Ticking as Race to Summer Film Season Begins : Movies: Columbia Pictures is pushing the deadline to get ‘Last Action Hero’ ready, while Universal Pictures just showed ‘Jurassic Park’ to exhibitors.

The last-minute drama surrounding two of Hollywood’s most highly anticipated films, “Last Action Hero” and “Jurassic Park,” is the talk of the town, as the summer moviegoing season kicks off Friday with the box-office-heavy Memorial Day weekend.

At Columbia Pictures, it’s down to the wire to complete “Last Action Hero,” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, in time for an all-important screening for theater exhibitors one week from today.

Meanwhile, Universal Pictures earlier this week showed Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” to a group of the nation’s exhibitors. Several interviewed believe it lives up to expectations that it will be one of the summer’s blockbuster hits.

“If there was ever a picture that had dollars written all over it, this is it,” said Tony Rhead, the vice president of film for the national Carmike Cinema circuit.

Columbia plans to show “Last Action Hero” to the nation’s theater operators on June 3--at least that is the target date. No one at the studio will confirm it, but theatrical exhibition sources around the country say they’ve been told to reserve the date.

The question is whether Columbia will have the film finished in time.

At Sony Studios in Culver City, where Columbia is based, film editors are reportedly working 18-hour days on the film. Schwarzenegger is said to be playing an active role--popping into the editing rooms and the marketing offices.

Columbia spokesman Mark Gill described the atmosphere at the studio as “red-hot focus.”

Gill admitted the schedule is tight, but called it “achievable.

“We are on precisely the same schedule as ‘Terminator 2,’ ” which was released by Columbia’s sister studio TriStar Pictures, Gill said. “It’s true, we need to set an exhibitors screening in early June. We will show it all in very rough form. We will show all the movie, and all but the final two reels will be totally done. The last two reels will be almost there.”

Earlier this month, a two-hour, 20-minute version was screened in Long Beach for a test audience. The finished film is expected to be trimmed back to two hours.

“Last Action Hero” will screen for the press beginning June 11. The world premiere is set for June 13 at the Bruin and Village theaters in the Westwood district.

A Columbia source claims that despite the last-minute, overtime editing on the film, the production would have a final cost of about $60 million to $70 million, although it was originally budgeted for $45 million. That would put it under the final cost of Schwarzenegger’s 1991 blockbuster “Terminator 2,” which came in considerably higher, the source said. Schwarzenegger received the same $15-million upfront salary for his starring role as he did for “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

Earlier this week there was a typically hush-hush screening for exhibitors of Spielberg’s $60-million “Jurassic Park.”

One California-based exhibitor, who did not wish to be identified, said the reaction was “generally positive . . . there is a lack of character development, but the last hour is nonstop action.”