`BULLWORTH': BEATTY PROJECT BY ANY OTHER NAME.

Byline: Bernard Weinraub The New York Times

For months it was known as ``The Untitled Warren Beatty Project.'' Then it was known as ``Untitled Bullworth.'' Now it's just ``The Untitled ...''

Whatever the title, Beatty, the movie star and director, has completed filming, amid military-style secrecy, a new film at 20th Century Fox that probably will be released early next year. Beatty is hardly alone in his quest for secrecy and control in making a film. Look at Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Barbra Streisand and others.

But what has attracted more attention to the new Beatty film is that it was written, directed and produced by the star, who also plays the lead role. Beatty won an Academy Award as Best Director for the 1981 movie ``Reds,'' in which he also starred, produced and co-scripted.

By all accounts, the new film is a contemporary political comedy about a senator named Jay Bullworth who is unraveling and fed up with the system. He finds his way to a church in a ghetto in Los Angeles. As he begins speaking to the congregation, his life takes unexpected turns. The cast includes Halle Berry, Paul Sorvino, Oliver Platt, Jack Warden and Don Cheadle. (Beatty has been involved in politics for years, mostly in the Democratic Party.)

Fox executives expect the film to be called ``Bullworth,'' although they are waiting for Beatty's approval on that title. They are also waiting for Beatty to deliver the final version of the movie, which some Fox executives hope to release in December - in time to make it eligible for this year's Academy Awards. A release next year, however, appears more likely.

The film was part of a deal Beatty made with Barry Diller, former chairman of Fox Inc., when Diller ran the studio in the late 1980s and early '90s. As a result, the current management of Fox had no choice but to make it. The film is not especially expensive by Hollywood studio terms - about $30 million, one executive said.

Some Fox executives who have seen the film, or parts of it, speak highly of it. ``Smart and funny,'' one said. But executives also speak warily of Beatty. ``Warren is Warren, he works his own way,'' said one executive with a laugh.

Beatty said he would prefer not to speak about the film while he's still working on it.

``If you say something that's taken out of context, you put a light on the picture that can be harmful to a lot of people,'' he said. ``I try not to do it.'' Besides, he said, ``How does it benefit the movie? I don't think it really does. If you're putting the movie first, why do it?''