Disney was hoping that its advance into the 'adult' film market - it co-financed Basic Instinct - would go relatively unnoticed. So, the revelation that 10 bootlegged minutes from Hollywood Pictures' The Color of Night contain full-frontal shots of Bruce Willis and his co-star, Jane March, has rattled those who still equate the studio with talking mice.

The out-takes, available at dollars 100 a video, feature the couple having sex in a number of locations with a ferocity that has prompted some to wonder, in time-honoured fashion, whether they were acting at all. What is certain is that Disney gave the director, Richard Rush, permission to proceed. 'We had a meeting before we started shooting, and I told them what I wanted to do. They said, 'Great, go for it',' says Rush.

The company may yet rue such leniency. It recently cancelled the initial 29 April release date to give Rush time to re-edit, after the Motion Picture Association of America ratings board began sniffing around.

Rush complains: 'They will only say, 'The sequence that starts with this gives us trouble, fix it.' ' Curiously, the MPAA has not objected to a lesbian love scene involving Lesley Ann Warren or to a sequence where a toy tank runs over March's naked body from foot to head.

New Line Cinema is paying Jim Carrey dollars 7m to star in Dumb and Dumber. Jim who? Ace Ventura, Pet Detective has yet to open in Europe, but the low-budget comedy, loathed by critics, has grossed close to dollars 70m in the United States.

Carrey's popularity has caught Hollywood unawares. (He was previously known only for his manic performances on Fox TV's In Living Colour.) His fee for Ace was dollars 350,000, and New Line paid him dollars 100,000 more to star in The Mask. His latest cheque puts him in the Kevin Costner / Tom Cruise league.

Is he worth it? Yes and no. Yes, because the size of Carrey's fee lets everyone know that New Line can afford to woo expensive talent after its integration last year with the media mogul Ted Turner's empire. No, if Carrey proves a passing fad and Dumb and Dumber bombs.

Meanwhile, a feeding frenzy is taking place, with Carrey picking up dollars 4m and dollars 5m from Universal and 20th Century Fox respectively. He thinks he's worth every cent: 'Hey, they wouldn't be going this far out with anybody unless they thought they had something that was very cool.'