Rushes

Jean-Jacques Annaud, Jean-Jacques Beneix, Claude Sautet, Maurice Pialat: even seasoned veterans of the arthouse circuit find it hard to remember who's who in the world of French cinema, so pity the poor civilian. French newspapers, however, this week gave what amounts to a useful form-guide, publishing the current pay-packets of the country's leading stars and directors. Annaud (Name of the Rose) emerged at the top of the directorial heap, taking home around pounds 1.15m for the summer hit The Lover. He was followed by Beneix (Diva), Luc Besson (Subway) and the veteran Bertrand Blier, all of whom can expect a fee of about pounds 520,000 for their services. Surprisingly, Gerard Depardieu is not the country's highest paid actor; that honour goes to the 56-year- old Alain Delon, who made his first film in 1957 and remains dear to the hearts of domestic audiences, earning pounds 730,000 for his role in The Return of Casanova, even though his international appeal has waned. Depardieu, the only French actor whose name can sell a film abroad, receives a modest pounds 312,000 per film, though that is often supplemented by a share in the profits. Predictably, Catherine Deneuve heads the list of actresses, earning pounds 286,000 plus a percentage of the profits for her work on Indochine. She is followed by Isabelle Huppert, who was paid pounds 187,000 for Madame Bovary, and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who commands around pounds 104,000 per film.

Proof, perhaps, that Steven Spielberg can work miracles. Spielberg, who is at work on his forthcoming dinosaurs-on-the- rampage epic Jurassic Park, wanted to make his featured monster, the carnivorous velociraptor, look suitably terrific - about 15 feet tall, say. Scientists called the film-maker's bluff, however, pointing out that the velociraptor was in fact only slightly larger than your average caveman. How fortuitous, then, that the discovery of a specimen far closer to the required size should be made as the film's publicity machine begins to wind up. Mike Perry, director of the dinosaur-hunting group which discovered the beast's remains in Utah, said: 'We have confirmed what he wanted to do. In fact, (we) sent Spielberg a cast of the claw just for his information, confirming that there was indeed an animal that size that lived.' Jurassic Park is released next year.