Can Hollywood compete with ESPN?

NEW YORK (AP) -- After months of searching in vain, director Gina Prince-Bythewood finally found the perfect actress to star in he rdebut movie. <br><br>There was just one hitch: Sanaa Lathan couldn't

Thursday, April 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

NEW YORK (AP) -- After months of searching in vain, director Gina Prince-Bythewood finally found the perfect actress to star in he rdebut movie.

There was just one hitch: Sanaa Lathan couldn't dribble.

"I always knew she was a great actor, but she had never picked up a ball before," Prince-Bythewood said. "I was, like, 'I can't hire someone who can't play ball!"'

So Lathan endured a five-month, six-days-a-week training session just to be able to post up like a pro in Prince-Bythewood's "Love and Basketball."

Director James Toback had the opposite problem while making "Black and White." He had to turn a couple of athletes -- New York Knicks star Allan Houston and boxer Mike Tyson -- into actors.

"You have to give them something that feels close to the way they would talk and the way they would think," To back said." You're basically just asking them to respond the way they would respond."

Jocks memorizing dialogue? Actors practicing three-point shots? It can mean only one thing: Hollywood's love affair with sports is in full bloom this spring.

And watch out: It's getting harder to tell the two worlds apart.

"When you talk about sports and Hollywood, you really have a marriage of two truly central American institutions. America is a society that likes to watch things," said Charles E. Marskie, a St. Louis University sociologist.

"We are in an era where people are flush with money. Enormous amounts of that money are pouring into entertainment and sports," he said. "And it seems to me more from entertainment."

Hybrid stars are already upon us. In the wake of Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan are Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, not to mention Alonzo Mourning, the new AT&T spokesman.

Football greats Dick Butkus, Johnny Unitas, Barry Switzer and Jim Brown recently appeared e Taylor snagged roles in "The Waterboy" and "Any Given Sunday."

This summer, Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman play a couple of NFL scabs who fill in when the regular players go on strike in "The Replacements."

Boxing is particularly hot. On the heels of "The Hurricane" and "To the Bone," there's buzz about the upcoming boxing drama "Girlfight," while Will Smith is getting ready to play Muhammad Ali.

Before that, though, Smith plays a golf caddie and spiritual guru for Matt Damon in a Robert Redford-directed summer flick "The Legend of Bagger Vance."

Even movie stars are getting into the game. Michael Douglas and a few of his acting buddies recently got network airtime for a golf tournament benefiting charity. And wasn't that Geena Davis trying out for the Olympic archery team?

"The infatuation with athletes among people from all walks of life is at a high point. It's the ultimate form of celebrity," Toback said. "Essentially, they are at the center of the whole culture."

Hollywood's attraction to athletes is nothing new, of course. One of the earliest films depicted a prize fight in Las Vega sbetween James J. "Gentleman Jim" Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons in 1897.

Now, with a smorgasbord of sports on the airwaves 24 hours a day, hyper linked on the Web and splashed across magazines and newspapers, how can Hollywood compete?

"There's so much pure sports on cable that to produce a movie that's simply a replication of sports on the field doesn't seem tome to add much," Marskie said.

So as sports expands -- even spilling over into fictional behind-the-scenes shows like ABC's "Sports Night" -- the traditional way Hollywood tackles the genre has been altered.

"Certainly in the way sports movies are presented to the audience, the visual part of it has changed," said Jimmy Smits, who stars in the boxing fable "Price of Glory" and, in a stroke of synergy, was host at this year's ESPY Awards for ESPN.

Prince-Bythewood says sports shown in movies have to look authentic to audiences reared on up-close, instant-replay, real sports footage.

That's why actor Jon Seda, a former Golden Gloves boxer, was a natural to cast for "Price of Glory;" it's why Ray Allen, a pro basketball player, anchored Spike Lee's "He Got Game"; and why Kevin Costner threw fastballs until his arm ached in "For Love of the Game."

It's also the reason Lathan had to spend hours pounding a gym floor before the cameras could ever roll on "Love and Basketball."

Even so, Prince-Bythewood was nervous on the eve of her film's opening, this weekend, but not because of the critics. She was more concerned about the reaction from a key group of women to the movie and Lathan.

"My scariest screening actually was for the women's Olympic team and the WNBA's veterans camp," she said. "If there's anyone out there that will diss her basketball -- if they see any little thing -- it will be them."