`CABLE' INSTALLATION : WITH JIM CARREY AS THE STAR, PRODUCERS HOPE TO CONNECT THIS FILM TO THE TOP OF THE CHARTS.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Jim Carrey was paid a whopping $20 million to play ``The Cable Guy,'' which kicked off a new round of moviemaking inflation that still has studios reeling. The movie is dark-tinged and abrasive and - perhaps even riskier for a star who has made his fortune acting dumb and dumber - it has a few thoughtful ideas. There has even been a nasty flap over the picture's writing credits that's heading for a courtroom.

But despite these alarming factors, the folks behind ``The Cable Guy'' figure they can't lose. And only in the wacky world of Hollywood high finance can their reasoning sound rational.

``If it bombs worldwide, they'll make money just because they're bombing worldwide,'' said Judd Apatow, one of ``Cable Guy's'' producers and a longtime writing collaborator of both Carrey and the film's director, Ben Stiller. ``It can't go wrong.''

Apatow's logic works like this: Regardless of Carrey's salary, ``Cable Guy'' is the cheapest high-profile picture coming out in the lucrative moviegoing month of June. The final production budget landed in the mid-$40 millions, a little more than twice what Carrey made.

In a season when effects-laden action attractions such as ``Twister,'' ``Mission: Impossible,'' ``Dragonheart,'' ``The Rock,'' ``Eraser'' and ``Independence Day'' come with price tags that start in the $60 millions and rise all the way to $100 million, ``Cable Guy'' indeed looks like a bargain.

``It was a very, very easy decision,'' another ``Cable Guy'' producer, Andrew Licht, said of Columbia Pictures' payout to Carrey. ``You could ask eight studio heads, and 100 percent of them would have done it. Judd had the best analogy when he said Jim is a human special effect. You get a lot in your package for $20 million.

``The guy, at this point, is five for five (``Ace Ventura, Pet Detective,'' ``The Mask,'' ``Dumb and Dumber,'' ``Batman Forever'' and ``Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls''), and they're all huge megahits,'' Licht added. ``You also get some added value, in the sense that nothing else is opening wide against us. That isn't because they think any of us behind the camera are so brilliant. It's because we've got Jim Carrey; that's something you can't put a price on, not having to compete with other pictures for publicity or advertising space or, most importantly, for audience.''

Actually, some do make the case for Ben Stiller being kind of brilliant. His short-lived TV skit show was critically hailed, and there were those who found merit in his feature-directing debut, ``Reality Bites.''

Most important of all, Carrey agreed with Stiller's approach to ``Cable Guy.'' Licht and his longtime producing partner, Jeffrey Mueller, had originally looked at Lou Holtz Jr.'s concept as a micro-budgeted, annoying buddy comedy - a nice relaxing shoot after their previous project, ``Waterworld,'' the most expensive movie ever made.

Chris Farley was initially cast to play the pay-TV installer who wouldn't go away. But when scheduling conflicts knocked the portly comedian out of contention, Carrey became a possibility. He, like Stiller (who had declined an offer to direct the original ``Cable Guy'' script), wanted to emphasize the story's edgier elements, and to turn it into a satire of both crazed stalker movies and the dangers of watching too much television.

``I wanted to go out there, go a little darker and weirder with it,'' Stiller explained. ``Really take the obsession thing further and try to satirize this genre of movie. Then Jim got attached to it, and he wanted to do the same thing. My sense is that he's trying to establish himself in a way that people understand he can do different things. I think he just wants to keep on evolving, though he's just so naturally funny, I doubt that's ever going to completely go away.''

While he admitted that ``Cable Guy'' may lose him a few fans, Carrey claimed he's not transitioning to more serious roles as part of any grand master plan. ``If they come, I'll do some,'' Carrey said. ``It just seems to be happening by itself. People think it's up to me, but it's really not. I'm reacting to the marketplace, I'm reacting to what scripts come to me, what feels like something I can identify with. It's just happening, and it's kind of strange.''

But not as strange as the Writers Guild of America's secretive credit arbitration process, at least according to ``Cable's'' guys. Once Stiller and Carrey signed on, Apatow was brought in to rewrite Holtz's script to their new specifications. Yet when a Guild arbitration panel decided on official crediting, they gave it solely to the original writer, not the subsequent writer-producer who claims to have rewritten 99 percent of the piece.

Apatow filed suit in Los Angeles Superior Court last month, seeking to force the WGA to give him screenwriting credit. The suit has since been withdrawn.

``The Writer's Guild is very protective of the first writer, especially from a writer-producer,'' Apatow said. ``But that rule was created to protect writers from people who are primarily producers.''

Not, essentially, from rewrite guys with a few extra functions, which is what Stiller said Apatow was. ``Judd wrote this script, he really did,'' according to Stiller. ``He worked for the last 10 months on this movie, every single day. The ironic thing is, he came onto this movie as a writer. The producer credit was just an additional thing that came later. In the end, there should have been a shared writing credit.''

Should ``Cable Guy'' alienate too large a segment of Carrey's core audience, however, credit may be the last thing anybody wants.

``I can't control what happens,'' Stiller said. ``I just have to hope it does well. I feel really good about the film; I feel I accomplished what I wanted to, which was to make a movie where Jim stretched himself and did something different and was also entertaining.

``I really want it to be a very successful summer film,'' Stiller continued. ``But you read so much about these directors for whom it's all on the line; they get diarrhea and anxiety attacks. Well, I don't have diarrhea yet. The object for me wasn't to make a $100 million movie, because Jim's already done that. It wasn't not to make a movie that made $100 million, it was just to give an audience something new.''

Besides, if people think ``Cable Guy'' is too dark to be a summer movie hit, they've obviously forgotten the high body counts in ``Batman Forever'' and ``The Mask.'' And they apparently don't know much about ``Cable's'' direct competition, either.

``I don't think the movie is dark; there are, like, five punches in the whole thing,'' Apatow reasoned. ``There's a lot less carnage in this than in `Independence Day' or `Mission: Impossible.' To me, what blows people's minds is that Jim is always the guy that saves the day. But in this movie, his world falls apart. When you see that look in his eyes as he realizes, `I am crazy, I watch too much TV, and I can't relate to anyone,' people love him so much that it's really disturbing.

``It's just a different kind of story. Jim not only wants to make people giggle, but to think and feel different feelings. This is what we're excited about, but it is the element of the movie that is challenging to a crowd.''

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4 Photos

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Jim Carrey gambles with `The Ca ble Guy'

(2--Color) Jim Carrey, left, portrays a cable installer who watches too much TV and loses touch with reality - subsequently driving Matthew Broderick crazy - in ``The Cable Guy.''

(3--Color) Fame keeps calling Carrey, who's five for five for hits.

(4) ``I wanted to go out there, go a little darker and weirder with it. Really take the obsession thing further and try to satirize this genre of movie. Then Jim got attached to it, and he wanted to do the same thing.''

Ben Stiller

on directing ``The Cable Guy''