MAGAZINE, MOVIE STUDIO TEAMING UP; DEAL TO GET STORY OPTIONS CREATES COZY RELATIONSHIP SOME JOURNALISTS QUESTION.

Byline: Robin Pogrebin The New York Times

In a striking testament to Hollywood's heightened interest in turning nonfiction magazine articles into film scripts, Buzz magazine plans to announce a deal today with Paramount Pictures under which the studio will provide Buzz with a discretionary fund to pay for in-depth articles with movie potential.

In return, Buzz, an 8-year-old magazine based in Los Angeles that covers personalities, restaurants and fashion, will offer Paramount the first opportunity at buying options on those articles and others - even before they are published.

If Paramount declines, Buzz has also contracted with Crosby/Levy Co., a management production company, to shop articles around to other motion picture and television studios.

Under this arrangement, which appears to be the first of its kind between a publication and a studio, Buzz will retain the film and television rights to any articles that it assigns - rights usually held by the writer - and will receive 50 percent of any revenue from option money and producer fees if the project goes forward.

The deal consummates an increasingly intimate relationship between magazines and the movies that has already raised a few eyebrows.

Some editors, writers and even producers say they are concerned about the prospect of too close an alliance between magazines, which report facts, and studios, which create escapist fantasy.

``When producers think they can generate media, they are acting as contradictory masters - the masters of truth and the masters of fiction,'' said Lynda Obst, a film producer who is affiliated with Fox Productions. ``I think there is something really dubious at the heart of that.''

But Marilyn Bethany, the editor in chief of Buzz, said she was unconcerned about the arrangement. ``I've held this up to the light and looked at it from all directions,'' she said. ``There doesn't seem to be a downside.''

While the symbiosis between magazines and movies dates back at least a generation, to the genesis of ``Saturday Night Fever'' and ``Urban Cowboy'' - each of which was based on an article in New York magazine - Hollywood's purchase of magazine material has lately mushroomed into something of a mini-industry.

Articles that have been optioned over the last five years include about 20 from The New Yorker, 14 from Vanity Fair, 10 from Texas Monthly, four from GQ and five from Outside, including Jon Krakauer's article on climbing Mount Everest that became the best-selling book ``Into Thin Air.''

Like any love affair, this one has its complications. People in the magazine business say the collaboration between Hollywood and journalists raises thorny questions about the tail wagging the dog. Have writers and editors begun to pursue articles based on their big-screen potential rather than their news value? Will studios begin to take on the role of quasi-editors - suggesting stories that lend themselves to screenplays and steering a publication away from those that do not?

``You're walking into an area that's a potential minefield,'' said Marie Brenner, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair whose articles have been optioned by Hollywood studios.