SUMMER MOVIES; SMALL SOLDIERS . . . A BIG MONSTER . . . . AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN.

Byline: Dave McNary Daily News Staff Writer

Giant lizards and toy soldiers will be battling everywhere in America for the attention of children and teen-agers this summer.

Hollywood studios are scrambling to fine-tune massive marketing campaigns as its most crucial season approaches. Originally, the summer might have been called ``Godzilla and the Seven Dwarfs,'' but Sony's giant lizard - due in theaters May 20 following a promotional campaign costing $150 million - is not expected to destroy the competing tie-ins, promotions, toys and knick-knacks.

Analysts now believe solid competition will come from DreamWorks SKG's ``Small Soldiers,'' in which a group of foot-high toy soldiers come alive in the suburbs.

`` `Godzilla' is the big one but `Small Soldiers' has good potential,'' said Martin Brochstein, editor of the New York-based Licensing Letter. ``Those are the two films everyone's talking about.''

Achieving that kind of buzz isn't simple. A studio has to line up dozens of marketing partners so that the movie is highly anticipated yet not overexposed to the point of seeming sickeningly ubiquitous.

``I think that consumer product manufacturers are becoming increasingly selective about which movies they hook up with,'' said Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jill S. Krutick. ``After `Godzilla,' there's not a lot to pick from this year, although Hasbro is putting a lot behind `Small Soldiers.' ''

It's a risky business. To break out from the pack, a studio has to finagle shelf space from retailers, design and manufacture an entire line of toys and apparel, and launch massive advertising campaigns. If the movie doesn't catch on, millions of items wind up being sold at deep discount to markets like Bolivia and Bulgaria.

``Everybody wants a franchise,'' said entertainment analyst and former studio executive Arthur Rockwell. ``They're all looking to be the next `Star Wars' and it's not that easy to do. The rap on Sony for years has been that they hadn't paid that much attention to creating a franchise until `Godzilla' came along.''

The ``Godzilla'' campaign has an odd wrinkle to it because no one knows exactly what the mutated lizard looks like. Marketing partners and licensees were required to sign confidentiality agreements forbidding them from revealing Godzilla's new look until the film opens in late May.

A few details about the 200-foot-high monster have emerged - he's not green and he's sleeker than the bulky 1950s version that became a staple of late-night TV.

The stakes are so high that producers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich went to the trouble of releasing bogus drawings to licensees, each slightly different, and then cut ties to several partners who leaked the drawing.

The idea is to create an event around the launch of the $125 million movie. But the bigger plan is to give the studio a profitable icon, like Warner Bros.' Batman, Disney's Lion King, MGM's James Bond and Paramount's Star Trek - a property with the strength to generate ongoing sales through sequels, TV shows, toys and videos.

``We're not just launching a movie,'' said Peter Dang, executive vice president of the Sony Signatures division. ``We're launching a franchise, so it's worth it to launch the franchise right.''

For Sony, that means three days of what it calls Monster Madness, starting with the May 18 world premiere in New York. On May 19, theaters will show sneak previews with special commemorative tickets and stores will be allowed to start putting up all the Godzilla merchandise. At midnight, they're officially allowed to start selling.

The first trailers for ``Godzilla'' appeared almost a year ago. The movie is widely expected to draw at least $200 million at the U.S. box office - much of that coming from the key moviegoing crowds of children and teen-agers.

``Sony has done a wonderful job of hyping the movie and maintaining the veil of secrecy about what he looks like,'' Brochstein said. ``They've licensed the property pretty completely.''

Still, the marketing of ``Godzilla'' may not be without flaws. Silver believes Sony is hurting itself by keeping ``Godzilla'' merchandise off the shelves prior to the movie opening. ``Typically, you sell up to 40 percent of your merchandise before the release, so they'll lose some of those sales,'' he said.

He is more enthusiastic about ``Small Soldiers.''

``If there ever was a movie custom-made for licensing, this is it,'' Silver said. ``If you think about it, `Small Soldiers' is a perfect fit for toys.''

The premise of the movie is a natural for marketing - two groups of toys, the Commando Elite and the Gorgonites battle it out in suburbia, in what analysts believe will tap into the reservoir of goodwill left by Disney's surprise 1995 hit, ``Toy Story.''

DreamWorks has signed on a vast array of marketing partners and showed off a massive line of more than 60 toys from Hasbro Inc. at February's Toy Fair in New York. Other licensees include Penguin Putnam, Tiger Electronics and Fruit of the Loom, while promotional partners include Burger King, Microsoft, Travelodge and Coca-Cola, which has been absent from movie promotion for several years.

``For `Small Soldiers,' you have basic categories that should work,'' Brochstein said. ``There's enough of a kiddish element so that you should have a pretty broad appeal.''

Still, it's not as if the rest of Hollywood has thrown in the towel.

The summer's other major promotional campaigns will come from Walt Disney Co., for its asteroid-versus-Earth project ``Armageddon'' and its animated entry ``Mulan,'' based on a Chinese folk tale.

The entertainment giant has seen consistently profitable performance in recent years but nothing near 1994's blockbuster levels from ``The Lion King,'' which sold an estimated $1.5 billion in items at retail. With standard royalties running between 10 and 14 percent, Disney saw an astounding $200 million in profit from just that single part of ``The Lion King.''

Disney's massive marketing machine, admired for its consistent ability to draw dollars from kids and their parents, has started to swing into gear for the two films. For example, Disney has unveiled a huge ``Mulan'' poster on Sunset Boulevard and both films are already being advertised on checkout-stand dividers at supermarkets. ``Mulan'' merchandise should hit store shelves in a week, or two months before its June 12 opening.

Disney also will have help from fast-food giant McDonald's as part of their 10-year marketing alliance signed in 1996.

``Armageddon'' represents the first time that McDonald's has tried to use a film outside the kid's market to attract customers. Some analysts believe that the strategy makes sense because of the strong interest that children have been showing in films oriented toward adults, such as Sony's ``Men In Black'' and ``My Best Friend's Wedding.'' And as any parent knows, an 8-year-old who wants to see a film can be a powerful persuader.

But ``Armageddon'' may be hurt by Paramount's May 8 release of comet-versus-Earth project ``Deep Impact'' seven weeks prior to its opening. And trackers believe ``Mulan'' will be a tricky sell despite the presence of such marketing powers as Nestle and Eastman Kodak.

For now, they predict box office and merchandise performance in the solid-but-unspectacular achieved by ``Hercules'' and ``The Hunchback of Notre Dame.''

`` `Mulan' will have the usual licensed items but it won't be anything like the huge campaigns on other Disney movies,'' Brochstein said.

So far this year, New Line has launched the biggest campaign with its promotional push for ``Lost In Space,'' replete with offbeat items like phone cards and breath mints. More will come soon: DreamWorks has teamed with Subway and Toys `R' Us for its push on the family film ``Paulie'' this month; Warner is expected to unleash Medieval merchandise to push next month's ``Quest for Camelot''; and 20th Century Fox has signed up partners for ``X-Files,'' including Mattel's agreement to produce Barbie and Ken dolls dressed like leading characters Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

One of the most massive and successful campaigns is expected to come in the fall with Disney's ``A Bug's Life,'' due to open Nov. 20 as its first project with Steve Jobs' Pixar Animation since their work on ``Toy Story.''

`` `A Bug's Life' will be absolutely huge,'' Silver predicts. ``It has the feel of `Toy Story' in a different genre and everyone is banking on it in a big way.''

Universal also has received high marks thus far for ``Babe, A Pig in the City,'' its sequel to its surprise 1995 hit about a talking pig.

``The sequel could be a sleeper,'' Silver predicts. ``They have designed an interactive toy called Real Talking Babe that's a great item and is already getting good support from retailers.''

A pair of films with already solid performances at toy stores will hit the big screen this year: PolyGram's ``Barney's Great Adventure'' and Paramount's ``Rugrats.''

``With both these films, you already have a strong-selling product, so the movie will add some more life to it,'' Silver said. ``Barney is particularly interesting since it's really the first movie for preschooolers and everyone's watching to see how it will do. It's clearly new turf.''

As for next year, a marketing colossus has already emerged - ``Star Wars, Chapter One,'' due out in May 1999. George Lucas, whose holdings are worth as much as $5 billion, began building anticipation for the movie a year ago by re-releasing the original three films, then selected Hasbro and Galoob last fall over Mattel for toy rights to the next three films.

The bidding produced what were the richest toy licensing agreements ever, for a simple reason: analysts believe toy sales for the trilogy, kicked off by Luke Skywalker's father meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi, can reach $4 billion. That's as much money as the entire Walt Disney Co. - including theme parks, movies, stores, TV networks - generates in two months.

MARKETING MADNESS

Studios line up vast arrays of partners to position movies as must-see events for children and teenagers. Some upcoming deals:

MOVIE; STUDIO; RELEASE DATE; PARTNERS.

Lost in Space; New Line; April 3; Trendmasters, Altoids.

Paulie; DreamWorks; April 17; Subway, Toys 'R Us.

Godzilla; Sony; May 20; Taco Bell, Hershey, Trendmasters, Galoob.

Mulan; Disney; June 12; Mattel, McDonald's.

X-Files; Fox; June 12; Mattel, McFarlane Toys.

Armageddon; Disney; July 1; McDonald's.

SmallSoldiers; DreamWorks; July 10; Hasbro, Burger King, Coca-Cola.

A Bug's Life; Disney; Nov. 18; Mattel, McDonald's.

Rugrats; Paramount; Nov. 25; Mattel.

Babe: Pig in the City; Universal; Nov. 25; Equity Toys

Star Wars - Chapter 1; Fox; May 1999; Hasbro, Galoob

Sources: studios and licensees

CAPTION(S):

Box, Drawing

BOX: MARKETING MADNESS (see text)

DRAWING: (Color) ``Small Soldiers'' art courtesy DreamWorks SKG. ``Godzilla'' artwork by Mark Gibbs www.monsterzero.org. Godzilla is a registered trademark of Sony. ``Star Trek'' figures courtesy Viacom International Inc.