Production Costs

Amid growing congressional criticism over the $75-billion cost of the B-2 Stealth bomber, Northrop has launched an intensive effort to cut the bomber's cost that will involve such wide-ranging measures as layoffs, a trimmed-down inspection program and reduced security.

In a bid to regain investors' affections after a disappointing first quarter, Fluor Corp. on Tuesday named a longtime company executive to head its chief operating unit and vowed to shave operating expenses by $100 million a year. It is not clear whether the cost-cutting effort will include layoffs. Fluor's operating expenses totaled $10.6 billion, so a $100-million annual savings would represent less than 1%.

Here, in a densely populated border city across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Tex., the name of an infamous locale in India is heard with stunning frequency. "We don't want to be the next Bhopal," said Erasmo Lucio Garza, referring to the site of the 1984 toxic gas leak at a Union Carbide subsidiary that left almost 3,000 dead and 200,000 injured in the world's worst industrial accident.

Los Angeles commercial producer Cindy Akins is shooting four television spots in Canada this month, lured by lower labor costs and a favorable exchange rate--the same factors that are driving film and TV production across the border. The advertising business often doesn't enter into discussions of how economics are driving movie and TV production to Canada. A recent study, jointly commissioned by the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild of America, estimated that in the last year, $2.

Cockroaches rent for $25 a day. Blowing up a car costs $500 to $1,000 just for explosives. A top cinematographer earns $25,000 a week. An A-list movie star goes for $20 million a picture. Toss in $5,000 a week for the star's meals, $4,500 a week for his hairstylist, $3,000 for his masseuse and $40,000 every time he hops aboard a private Gulfstream jet to take a break from filming and you get some idea of why the cost of studio-made movies is spiraling out of control in Hollywood.

Mobil Oil Corp. has set a record for campaign spending in Torrance, so far paying more than $360,000 in the hope of defeating a March 6 ballot measure that would eliminate the use of hydrofluoric acid at its refinery there. Mobil has said a conversion to less volatile sulfuric acid would cost $100 million. The oil company has far outspent supporters of the measure, who reported $7,600 in expenditures through Feb. 17.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. has fallen into much deeper trouble on its Air Force C-17 cargo jet program and is projected to exceed the cost ceiling for developing the aircraft by as much as $500 million, according to defense officials citing a confidential Pentagon analysis. Such cost overruns could precipitate a financial crisis at the nation's largest defense contractor if the Pentagon doesn't step in to rescue the company.

Environmental emphasis seems to be on acid rain, global warming and similar major areas. Why not devote some of this effort to asking people not to discard beer and soft-drink cans, paper cups and other debris all over? The result would be visible evidence of a cleaner environment. HENRY FEIL Laguna Niguel