ANTITRUST OFFICIALS LOOK INTO FILM DEALS.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

The federal government's antitrust arm has decided to investigate whether top Hollywood studios and theater chains are operating fairly in how they reach distribution agreements.

The Department of Justice confirmed Monday it has launched a civil probe into ``possibly anti-competitive practices'' in movie distribution. Officials recently sent a 10-page document to major studios and the nation's two biggest chains, Loews Cineplex and Regal, asking for information on sales and booking policies going back to January 1996.

Specific practices questioned include theaters asking for ``clearances,'' or exclusive distribution rights within an area, and ``block booking,'' in which a chain obtains a film in exchange for agreeing to show another film, usually with less box office potential.

``I don't think there's a great big smoking gun,'' said Steve Cesinger, an investment banker with Grief & Co. ``This is likely to be one of the periodic reviews of the industry. There's nothing that I'm aware of that has people shaking in their boots.''

A 1948 consent decree requires studios to book films on a theater-by-theater and film-by-film basis. The decree's ban on studio ownership of theaters was lifted in the early 1990s.

Laguna Research Partners consultant Kevin Skislock said the probe could stem from complaints by small chain operators that they are not being treated fairly as large chains expand. Or, he added, the probe could have come from large chains who believe studios are not acting equitably in the split of box office revenues.

The analyst noted studios' percentage of box office receipts has improved in recent years because films increasingly take in most of their gross within the first few weeks, when revenue-split agreements are most favorable to studios.

``The chains could be using this to say, We need the split to change because we're making a huge dollar investment in plant and equipment,'' Skislock said.