Travolta Wants to Return to 'Battlefield'.

HOLLYWOOD is full of implausible plot lines, and this one's a doozy, but it's true: John Travolta wants to do a "Battlefield Earth" sequel.

The biggest box-office bomb of 2000 is Travolta's homage to pulp sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the Church of Scientology in 1954. Hubbard's 1982 tome has become an obsession for Travolta -- or, as "his people" put it: "a passion project."

Travolta wants so badly to do the sequel that he's willing to underwrite part of the project himself, and it is rumored that the rest of the money will come from fellow Scientologists.

Although the Johnathan Krane Group, managers of Travolta, say he hasn't made a move towards a "Battlefield Earth" sequel, others extremely close to Travolta say he is definitely going to do another one -- unless they can talk him out of it.

Currently, Travolta is getting back on track after his recent string of duds (most recently "Lucky Numbers") with the newly finished "Swordfish" for Warner Bros.

It's an action-thriller CIA intrigue flick for which he is receiving a $25 million salary.

Travolta is said to be blaming the failure of "Lucky Numbers" on Sherry Lansing, chairman of Paramount Pictures' Motion Picture Group, and director Nora Ephron (with whom Travolta collaborated on "Michael"). He is supposedly sore that Lansing and Ephron talked him into doing the picture, and he also disapproves of the way the studio promoted it.

Laura Dern says she has finished filming "Jurassic Park 3" and is looking forward to settling back into L.A., most likely in the Los Feliz area, with her new secret boyfriend. Dern, who is eyeing a house on the market for $1.8 million, hasn't been spending much time here since her breakup with ex-fiance Billy Bob Thornton, because she says she couldn't take all the questions about the breakup.

Sam Neil, who is also reprising his role in the Jurassic sequel, says he got in shape by running miles every day before the filming began. The script motivated him because he knew he'd be doing plenty of running away from those nasty dinosaurs -- in take after take.

Sid Scheinberg, former president of Universal Pictures and now head of his own film company Bubble Factory, says, "We've got every genre of picture in development." His son and co-partner Johnathan Scheinberg is excited about "Native American," a movie getting lots of attention from Robert Redford for Sundance.

Short Takes

Marisa Tomei doesn't think receiving an Oscar early in her career in 1992 for Best Supporting Actress in "My Cousin Vinny" was a curse, even though her career seemed to fade immediately afterwards. "It was just about selectivity," says Tomei, who is back on a roll with four movies coming out. The slate includes the highly anticipated Paramount release "What Women Want," starring Mel Gibson.