Belfast Telegraph ; 13-Apr-2000 12:00:00 am ; 545 words

John Travolta is in bullish - and defensive - mood. He's talking about his latest venture, the big-budget production of the controversial sci-fi epic Battlefield Earth - a battle for the planet between good and evil - which was written by L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, of which the actor has long been a member.

There has been a lot of flak over the making of the movie, but Travolta dismisses that by arguing that since it was a major success as a literary work there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be turned into an equally successful movie. The project has, anyway, long been close to his heart . . . 20 years in the planning.

"The book was published in 1980, so we are talking about 18 to 20 years and we are dealing with one of the biggest science-fiction books ever written . . . five-and-a-half million copies have been sold. That sort of interest deserves a movie!

"After 20 years we have finally reached the post-production stage - adding special effects, that kind of thing - and people really want to see it.

"I'm not used to this level of post-production work, with all the added attractions like the F/X and the sound the movie has to have. Sometimes you do wonder if you have got it right but overall I'm happy with what we've got.

"You know it will work because you see it working even without the special effects and the music. And if you can say that you get the feeling you have a great movie. When you do add all the rest, it becomes this wonderful monster and you can then say: 'This is even better than I thought'."

He has also discovered that when you get so closely involved with all aspects of bringing a movie to the screen - and this can truly be said to be Travolta's own project - all manner of hidden agendas appear.

Like the merchandising side.

He did get to see the importance of all this back in the days when there was a Travolta Doll and other merchandise associated with his movies: "Yeah! We had a Travolta Doll, a Barbarino Doll, the lunch pail, the metal box, tons of memorabilia from Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Urban Cowboy . . . blankets, sleeping bags. No end to it!

"For Battlefield Earth it will be more like the Star Wars stuff."

It was, for Travolta, a hectic schedule while working on Battlefield Earth since he was also working on the comedy, Numbers. That meant he would finish a day's work on Earth, grab dinner, put his child Jett to bed "and then go over to the studio and work on the movie until however long it takes".

The participation involved in the making of Battlefield Earth has, he says, been great, he's just "basking in the success of that".

He adds: "We budgeted the movie in such a way that we feel protected in a certain way. But outside the money, we just want it to be an emotional success.

"It's been such a great year-and-a-half in putting this all together. So we'll see how it plays with audiences. So far, for me, failure isn't a choice, this one even more so for me because it means so much to me."

The original book was such a massive one - 1,000 pages - that Travolta decided to turn it into two movies.

"We've done the first 500 pages, so now with the sequel we'll do the second 500.

"Really, I'd rather call it Part Two. It's kind of a sequel, even though it's really the second part of a massive book. I'm fully committed to it, it's just a matter of when where and how."