LONG WAIT, BIG BUDGET FOR PAKULA FILM.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

First it was production delays and reported tiffs as to whether Harrison Ford or Brad Pitt was being treated with more importance in ``The Devil's Own.'' Then the movie, which has reportedly ballooned to a budget of more than $90 million, was bedeviled by midshooting script changes. And now? Well, it seems things have not sped up at all.

Once expected to be a November release, then to make a Christmas debut, the drama about an Irish Republican Army commando and a New York cop is now headed for unveiling March 28. Composer James Horner expects to go back into the studio in mid-January to finish scoring it.

Director Alan Pakula ``has a blank check for how much time he wants to edit the movie,'' says Horner, the esteemed composer of such film scores as ``Alien,'' ``Apollo 13'' and ``Braveheart.'' ``Alan, who cuts a strong figure in the industry, said, `You can't have it till it's done,' and the studio said, `Oh, OK.' ''

Horner is very pleased about the pace. ``For me, it's been a different sort of experience, given today's rushed post-production climate, when my usual schedule is two to four weeks, max. For example, I did `Ransom' in 10 days, `Clear and Present Danger' in two weeks. But this time, Alan wanted me to score several crucial scenes in `The Devil's Own' early on - temporary music wasn't working for him - and then see how the sequences played with the score in place.''

At one point, says Horner, ``We were almost done. Then Alan heard my score and it gave him all kinds of other ideas, and he decided to go back and make changes in the film. It's very rare that a filmmaker will adjust a feature because of the music. It's flattering, actually.''

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Tom Hanks is still talking about playing Walter Winchell in a Martin Scorsese film based on Neal Gabler's book about the late gossip columnist, but says he has no idea when that will be. ``There isn't even a script,'' Hanks says.

It's going to be interesting to see how the public will accept the beloved actor playing a character who wielded his power with a heavy hand and is not remembered fondly by many.

The videoland view

Sounds like we can forget about Jason Priestley suiting up as Mickey Mantle for a TV movie about the late baseball great. ``Nothing has happened with that at all,'' he says of the prospective telefilm that was much discussed last year. ``I'm sure I'll end up doing a film or some other project during my hiatus,'' says the ``Beverly Hills, 90210'' star, ``but nothing is set yet.''

After more than 100 years of being ignored, Louisa May Alcott's recently discovered ``The Inheritance'' is moving briskly along in its adaptation from novel to TV movie for CBS. The script - about a sweet-natured, attractive, penniless orphan who falls in love with a man to whom she is socially inferior - is finished, and the network now has the project in preproduction.

Another attention-grabbing production on its way to the small screen is ``The Gun,'' an anthology that traces the violence-plagued stories of a succession of owners of a single weapon. Kushner-Locke is producing for ABC.

Busy, busy, busy

Super producer Gale Anne Hurd will have product all over the big screen in coming weeks. Her ``The Relic'' chiller is due Jan. 10 from Paramount. And her $100 million ``Dante's Peak'' Pierce Brosnan-Linda Hamilton starrer is being unveiled by Universal in February.

Hurd is convinced that Hamilton's performance in ``Dante's'' will surprise audiences who remember her most vividly as ``T2's'' muscled guerrilla mom. ``People aren't very aware of it yet, but Linda has a marvelous capacity to play wit and charm. In this movie, she's a normal, relaxed sort of woman who is juggling single parenthood and a job with serving as mayor of a very small town.''

Hurd certainly knows about such juggling. At one point a few months ago, she found herself overseeing work on three pictures in different locales simultaneously - post-production on last year's ``Ghost and the Darkness,'' special effects work on ``Relic,'' and production of ``Dante's Peak.'' And all of that while she was fighting a virus her 5-year-old daughter brought home from kindergarten.