LOW BUDGETS LOOM LARGE ON ACADEMY AWARDS BALLOT.

Byline: Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

It's deja vu all over again.

Like 1997, when ``Jerry Maguire'' was the single major Hollywood movie in the running for top Oscars, the March 21 Academy Awards will be dominated by personalities and/or productions unknown to the masses.

In the lead-actress race, Emily Watson has been nominated for ``Hilary and Jackie,'' which has brought in only $2.5 million in some 40 days of domestic release (translating to ticket sales of less than 600,000). Fernanda Montenegro is in the running for ``Central Station,'' which has been seen by around 400,000 people on these shores - with a take of less than $2 million in 80 days. And ``Elizabeth,'' for which Cate Blanchett is up for honors, has grossed in the neighborhood of only $21 million on these shores in some 90 days.

Gwyneth Paltrow is up for ``Shakespeare in Love'' - but that film, too, is an art-house picture that has, thus far, brought in $32 million domestically. Meryl Streep is up for ``One True Thing,'' but the picture, unfortunately, played to seas of empty seats and went down as one of Universal's big disappointments of the year.

The movies represented in the lead-actor list also suffer from a lack of luster: Ian McKellen is in the running for ``Gods and Monsters,'' which has brought in only some $3 million in 96 days of domestic release. Nick Nolte's up for ``Affliction,'' which has achieved a take of only $650,000 in 40 days of limited release - with ticket sales of a mere 150,000 or so.

Edward Norton's a nominee for ``American History X,'' which made $6.1 million in a little over two months of release. Italy's ``Life Is Beautiful'' - for which Roberto Benigni has been nominated - has brought in close to $18 million domestically so far. That makes Tom Hanks the only name in either lead performer category attached to a film (``Saving Private Ryan'') that has been seen by a significant share of the moviegoing public.

For some of the films involved, this week's nominations will result in a broadened release in the weeks before the Oscar ballots close. Still, it looks like the 71st annual Academy Awards will be - at best - a festival for buffs of elitist film fare.

Millennium style

Still trying to figure out how to celebrate the commencement of the year 2000? How about a double celebration - on an ultra-luxury cruise ship that sails in tandem with a sister ship across the International Date Line to meet the new millennium a second time on the other side. And if that's not enough, there will be a precruise party with Tony Bennett entertaining at Beverly Hills' Regent Beverly Wilshire hotel, and another in Cairns, Australia, with big-time entertainment still to be announced. And that's still not all. Both Silversea ships will meet in Suva, Fiji, for a New Year's Eve beach party featuring Sha Na Na and such luminaries as Rita Moreno, Joel Grey and astronaut Buzz Aldrin. All this for beginning fares of some $60,400 per couple. And, lucky you, some suites are still available.

Snowy horror

The townspeople in ``Stephen King's Storm of the Century'' are forced to do battle with evil and a horrendous snowstorm in the ABC miniseries airing Sunday, Monday and Feb. 18. But it was the snow that proved to be the real-life challenge during shooting, says Tim Daly, who co-stars in the mini with Debrah Farentino and Casey Siemaszko. ``The fake snow we used most of the time was this heinous plastic stuff that blew into the eyes and ears and every crevice and orifice in your body,'' says Daly. ``I'd finish doing a take and turn around and see 60 people on the crew with respirators and goggles and then think, `Hmmm, I don't have those.' Everyone was feeling the effects of this cruddy stuff.''

Love gets ready

An April 12 production start date has been set for Jennifer Love Hewitt's Audrey Hepburn TV biopic. Penned by estimable playwright Marsha Norman, the telepic will run three hours and cover the life of the late star from her childhood abandonment by her beloved father to her travels through Nazi-occupied Holland through her rise to film stardom.

How original!

Moviemaker Joel Silver is producing a Fox comedy pilot called ``Action,'' about a hotshot movie producer who suffers a career setback when his latest exploitation flick bombs at the box office. Where do they ever dream up these ideas?

With reports by Stephanie DuBois.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Emily Watson

Oscar nominee

(2) Tim Daly

``Storm of the Century''