Is It Time Now to Cry for 'Evita'?

Political unrest, financial collapse and bruised egos - enough to rival the life of the dramatic Eva Peron herself - have marked the tortured path of ''Evita'' from stage toward the screen. Like so many film projects in Hollywood that go on for years without being made, ''Evita'' is an example of the hazards of the high-stakes marriage between art and commerce. Almost since its London opening in 1978, the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim

Rice opera has been talked about as a potential motion picture, and with good reason. To date, more than 100 productions have been staged in 12 languages. The show has grossed in excess of $300 million, and the sound track has sold more than 10 million units. Four film companies have had their hands on the property; seven directors have been considered, and at least 15 actresses have been touted. And still no movie.

If the history of the production resembles an elephant described by blind men, as one participant put it, it is because everyone involved has a different version of what happened based on their own experience and self-interest. And, as is often the case in Hollywood, many of the those interviewed for this story would not speak for attribution, if at all, about sensitive issues.

It did seem, however, that when Oliver Stone was signed in April 1988 to direct the film version of ''Evita,'' the long-delayed production might finally get under way. Meryl Streep was in the wings to star as the Argentine actress who became mistress and wife to the dictator Juan Peron and a national hero. The Weintraub Entertainment Group was financing the film, Robert Stigwood was producing and a Christmas 1989 release was tentatively planned. Now Mr. Stone is gone, Ms. Streep is likely gone and W.E.G. is gone. What remains is Mr. Stigwood and a project in search of a production.

But the failure to get ''Evita'' made is not just simply a set of unfortunate circumstances. There are some persuasive reasons why the project has remained stagebound. To make any motion picture is difficult (''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next'' took 13 years), but Broadway musicals bring with them special problems. With the exception of the ''street'' musicals of the 70's (''Grease,'' ''Hair''), the tradition of film musicals has all but disappeared. The less than smash business of films such as ''Jesus Christ Superstar,'' ''Godspell'' and ''Chorus Line'' delivered a sure message to producers that musicals were a genre in trouble artistically and commercially. Furthermore, for a young audience accustomed to the quick rhythms of MTV, a story in operatic form was regarded as problematic.

The producer Allan Carr (''Grease'' on film, with Mr. Stigwood, ''La Cage aux Folles'' on stage) agrees that ''musicals are like any other movies but trickier because you have not only the Hollywood people to satisfy but the Broadway people to satisfy, so what you've got are eight different camps vying for their own interests. Hollywood is terrified of Broadway.''

Over the years, ''Evita'' may have given the impression of being more active than it actually was. Because of Mr. Stigwood's relative silence on the matter, the press often took the slightest rumbling as fact. Among the more tantalizing combinations advanced by the media were: Franco Zeffirelli directing Diane Keaton; John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John and Elton John as Che Guevara, Eva Peron and Juan Peron, respectively; Bette Midler as Eva; Pia Zadora as Eva; Barbra Streisand as Eva and Elliott Gould as Juan; Sylvester Stallone as Che; Barry Gibb as Che and Meatloaf as Che. Ken Russell Wanted Liza Minnelli

In reality, Mr. Stigwood says that the project has had only two intense periods of activity: when Ken Russell was on board in the early 80's and most recently with Mr. Stone. There have been a number of directors who had ''great interest and will,'' says Mr. Stigwood, ''but not much clarity'' about how they would translate the play to the screen. ''When we sat down and talked they couldn't tell me how they'd do it.''

Paramount Pictures bought the rights to develop the material in 1981, and shortly thereafter Mr. Russell was named director with plans to shoot in Spain. At the time, the frontrunner for Eva was Elaine Paige, who had originated the role on the London stage. But as the librettist Tim Rice recalls, ''The Hollywood boys wanted an international film star, which I thought was generally narrow thinking, since so many films are hits without names.''

Mr. Russell, not surprisingly, had a mind of his own and screen-tested Liza Minnelli - in a blond wig. When he insisted that he could not make the film without her, Mr. Stigwood finally fired him. ''Russell was an insane choice and would have wrecked the film if he had gotten his hands on it,'' says Mr. Rice. ''I was relieved when he got the boot.'' Mr. Russell could not be reached for comment. Following Mr. Russell's departure, Mr. Stigwood attempted to pick up the pieces, and in not so rapid succession, the directors Herbert Ross, Richard Attenborough, Alan Pakula and Hector Babenco came and went. Madonna Wanted A Rewritten Score

The project was largely dormant in the mid-80's, with only occasional flurries of activity, as Mr. Stigwood went off to produce ''Staying Alive'' and other projects. By this time Paramount lost its enthusiasm but was briefly roused from its indifference when Madonna showed an interest. Obviously serious about playing the part, she arrived for a meeting with Mr. Stigwood with her hair styled in a 40's twist and decked out in an evening gown Eva Peron herself might have worn.

Mr. Stigwood was impressed with Madonna and actually thought she would be good in the role. His enthusiasm cooled considerably, however, when the actress requested that Andrew Lloyd Webber's score be rewritten to suit her. The producer did think enough of Madonna to suggest that Mr. Stone meet with her when he took over the reins, but a 15-minute meeting ended that possibility.

By 1987 the project seemed indefinitely stalled when Jerry Weintraub entered the picture. Mr. Weintraub was an old crony of Mr. Stigwood's from the music business who had made a fortune managing the careers of performers like Bob Dylan and John Denver and was now ready to move into the film business in a big way. He had raised some $460 million in bank loans and private investment to finance the Weintraub Entertainment Group, and one of his first moves was to pick up the rights to ''Evita.'' Oliver Stone Tried For Argentina

At about the same time, Oliver Stone, hot off the success of ''Platoon,'' asked his agent to check with the Robert Stigwood Organization about ''Evita.'' Mr. Stone was a fan of the musical and wanted to know why it had never been made as a film. The response from the Stigwood group was positive - Mr. Rice was ''red hot keen'' on him - and before long the two sides were in negotiation.

What Mr. Stone brought to the project that earlier candidates didn't was a vision of how it should be done. He imagined a production that returned to the glamorous style of the Vincente Minnelli and Arthur Freed musicals of the 50's with beautiful sets and a cast of thousands. He believed ''a whole country'' was needed as backdrop for the action when Eva addressed the masses from the palace balcony. It was a fundamental precept for Mr. Stone, who began immediately to work on the screenplay.

What the new production also had going for it was a dramatically changed political climate in Argentina, which could make it possible to film in Eva Peron's homeland. As recently as the late 70's, anyone seen scrawling Eva Peron's name on a wall could be sentenced to death, but after the Falkland Islands debacle, the ruling military junta was ousted as the Peronist Party enjoyed a resurgence.

Mr. Stone set off on an exploratory trip to Argentina, where he visted Eva Peron's birthplace and encountered a Government eager for American film business. In subsequent visits, the newly elected President and head of the restored Peronist Party, Carlos Saul Menem, assured Mr. Stone that Argentina was not a banana republic and guaranteed the production freedom of speech as well as 50,000 extras.

The one remaining problem was who would play the lead. The press fueled speculation that Olivia Newton-John or Madonna was about to be offered the role. Barbra Streisand was so irked by published reports that she was under consideration that she denied for the record any interest. Barely mentioned was Ms. Streep, perhaps because on previous occasions when Mr. Stigwood had inquired about her availability, her agent, the powerful Sam Cohn, had reportedly demanded that his client be packaged with a director and writer from the same agency, International Creative Management. Mr. Cohn was unavailable for comment on this or any other matter related to ''Evita.''

Mr. Stone and Ms. Streep met, and a musical audition was scheduled. Mr. Stigwood recalls her arriving ''very quietly and very secretively'' at his New York office to rehearse with his musical director. After two weeks of work, she recorded a tape with just a piano backing, and the results, according to Mr. Stigwood, were ''just mind-boggling what she had achieved'' in such a short time. ''She has a marvelous voice.'' A copy of the tape was sent to Mr. Stone, Mr. Lloyd Webber and Mr. Rice, who all agreed that they had finally found their Evita. Mr. Lloyd Webber, Mr. Rice and Mr. Stigwood jointly control the rights to make the film. Then Eyes Turned Toward Spain

With Mr. Stone and Ms. Streep in place, there was now every reason to believe that ''Evita'' would finally be made. A $29 million budget was submitted to W.E.G., and an early 1989 start was targeted. But no sooner was the production rolling again than the wheels started to come off. Food riots erupted in Argentina in the summer, with 13 people killed. Fearful of a work stoppage and concerned about the safety of the cast and crew, Mr. Stigwood and Mr. Weintraub balked at the prospects of shooting there.

To this day, sitting in his Venice Beach, Calif., office, Mr. Stone heats up when he talks about the decision. ''I argued to shoot there, but Weintraub said he had it from his sources in the White House - he was a major financier of the Bush campaign - that there was no way he would shoot in Argentina. I told him he was defaming a country.'' For his part, Mr. Stigwood is willing to take the blame and says that the decision to pull the plug on the Argentina shoot was the result of State Department intelligence he had obtained, not Mr. Weintraub.

In any case, the Argentine shoot was canceled and after unsuccessful reconnaissance missions in Brazil and Chile, focus was shifted to Spain, where the estimated budget ballooned to $35 million. But by this time there was trouble at home as well. Without a box-office hit, W.E.G. was experiencing a severe financial drain and was virtually without production money. This led to what is euphemistically known in Hollywood as ''creative differences,'' and W.E.G. decided to abandon the project.

According to the W.E.G. president Kenneth Kleinberg, when the company took over the project in 1987, it imagined a budget in the $16 million range. W.E.G. saw the production as a concept picture not necessarily done on such a large scale. ''It's an opera; we're not talking about 'Batman,' '' argues Mr. Kleinberg. When Money Became a Factor

While W.E.G. apparently remained very high on Mr. Stone's script, ''The magnitude of the project was too large and consequently too expensive'' to continue, explains Mr. Kleinberg. ''If you decide all you want to spend is the money to buy a Pontiac and you look at a Mercedes, you might like it, but feel that you can't afford it.''

Mr. Kleinberg insists that the company's declining financial position had nothing to do with its decision to abandon the project and categorized it as purely a business decision. ''We didn't feel that, in the package presented to us, the rewards outweighed the risks.''

Other parties involved, however, see W.E.G.'s collapsing bank account as precisely the reason the filmJU wasn't made at that time. ''It didn't really matter if it was $26 million or $32 million because they [ W.E.G. ] had run out of production funds,'' says Mr. Stigwood. Mr. Stone was even more blunt. ''If Weintraub had the money, Meryl and I would be in Spain shooting right now.''

But they didn't, and with time running out at the end of August, W.E.G. informed Mr. Stigwood that the company was electing not to proceed with the production. That could have been the end of the road for ''Evita'' had not Carolco Pictures, the home of ''Rambo'' and the company where Mr. Stone had a production deal of his own, come to the rescue. Carolco picked up where W.E.G. left off and over the next three weeks tried to hammer out deals with the principal people. Ms. Streep, through Mr. Cohn, was asking for a pay-or-play deal, a common clause for a star of her stature whereby she would be paid for her commitment of time whether the film was shot or not.

According to parties privy to the negotiations, things came to a boil in mid-September when Ms. Streep kept escalating her salary demands. A 48-hour deadline was set by Mr. Cohn and was apparently met when all hands agreed to take a cut in their share, which would then go to Ms. Streep. Everything appeared to be back on track again when, in Mr. Stigwood's words, ''out of the blue,'' Mr. Cohn sent a terse, two-line fax to Carolco and to R.S.O. advising them that Ms. Streep was pulling out of the project for ''personal reasons'' because of exhaustion. Mr. Stigwood was reportedly furious and in retaliation sent out a press release to announce her departure. Meryl Streep Did The Tango and Left

Ms. Streep was in the midst of completing back-to-back productions, ''She-Devil'' and ''Postcards From the Edge.'' She had begun to work with the ''Evita'' choreographer Paula Abdul on the tango and was taking singing lessons to strengthen her voice and was scheduled to start rehearsals shortly.

At least one person with knowledge of the production wondered if her exhaustion may have stemmed as much from a weariness with negotiations and the prolonged preproduction period and concern over financing as any physical ailments. Another party suggested that Ms. Streep had wanted to get out earlier but when her demands were met, she was left no choice but to withdraw.

Whatever her reasons for leaving, 10 days later, according to Mr. Stigwood, Ms. Streep reconsidered and decided she wanted to make the movie after all. But when Mr. Stigwood called Mr. Stone to inform him that ''Meryl was back on track,'' the director told him that he was not. In the week that the film was down, Mr. Stone had already let the key production people go and had refocused his energies on a film about the rock group, the Doors, which he had been writing for the last several months.

For Mr. Stone, the roller-coaster ride of trying to make ''Evita'' had just gone on too long. Crucial relationships in making a movie may have been strained beyond repair. He also feared a production budget that could easily run up to $50 million. ''If it had all been there, it would have been fun and fantastic,'' says Mr. Stone, with equal traces of disappointment and relief. ''What started as a whim turned into a reality'' for Mr. Stone, and he says he was exhausted by the process.

But true to its history, ''Evita'' is still not dead. Mr. Stigwood is hoping to resurrect the project with Ms. Streep and a new director, using Mr. Stone's script, and is awaiting an answer from the actress. Despite the countless disappointments, Mr. Stigwood refuses to be discouraged and says that the production could be under way by early summer in Seville and in theaters by Christmas of 1990.

''Of course, to be in the wonderful world of entertainment you have to be optimistic. Some wonderful things have taken 10 years to make,'' Mr. Stigwood says. And, for better or worse, each of them has been the work of a producer who just wouldn't let it go.