LOS ANGELES (May 13, 1999 5:23 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - Ever since "Shakespeare in Love" dominated the Oscars, the Bard has been supposedly hotter than ever in Hollywood. But now comes a big test - the wide release of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The movie opens Friday with big stars, aggressive advertising and promotional tie-ins with cosmetics and spaghetti sauce.

Alas, it also opens just days before the May 19 release of the latest "Star Wars" installment.

"It's a risk," said Lindsay Law, president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, which is releasing the Shakespeare movie on 1,000 screens - 150 more than the company's biggest success to date, "The Full Monty."

"If no one shows up, I'm in trouble," he said.

Despite the successes of "Shakespeare in Love," a fictionalized account of the Bard's life, filming one of his plays largely as written is far from a sure bet for a studio.

The Kenneth Branagh-directed "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1993 and "Hamlet" starring Mel Gibson in 1990 barely made $20 million each.

The "Midsummer" budget was $14 million, a bargain considering the cast includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett and Calista Flockhart. All worked cheaply for a chance to do Shakespeare.

In addition to the cast, "Midsummer" may be helped by the seven Oscars "Shakespeare in Love" won. The movie went on to gross more than $94 million in North America.

"Shakespeare in Love" served as an introduction to the power of his prose and poetry - and may have helped adjust the ear to the high language that so often throws off modern movie-goers.

"Shakespeare is no longer some onerous name at the top of a curriculum that kids look at and say, 'I've got to read this?'" Kline said. "He's now this attractive young English guy who falls madly in love with Gwyneth Paltrow."

"Midsummer" the play is already seen as one of the most understandable of Shakespeare's works, and "Midsummer" the movie sticks closely to the text, though it takes some liberties, shifting the setting from the forests of Greece to Tuscany and moving the time period up to the turn of the century.

Another change is to Kline's character, Nick Bottom, the hammy actor who is transformed into a donkey. Though usually played for comic relief, Bottom's role is strengthened in the movie to make him the emotional center of the production.

Getting Flockhart for her first big movie role since hitting TV stardom as Ally McBeal was one of the many casting coups for director, writer and co-producer Michael Hoffman, though he acknowledged that in Flockhart's case it was just luck. She had not reached her white-hot success when hired to play the lovelorn Helena.

The relatively low budget means that Searchlight doesn't need "Shakespeare in Love" numbers to break even.

The studio has hedged its bets by striking promotional deals, a common practice for big-studio movies but almost unheard-of for a specialty film. Max Factor created a line of "Midsummer" cosmetics and Classico Pasta Sauce sponsored a sweepstakes and put out a cookbook of recipes "inspired by the film."

The film's soundtrack, featuring performances by opera stars, debuted in the Top 10 on the classical charts.