Company Town : Joe Eszterhas, the Million-Dollar Screenwriter, on a Roll at Paramount : Movies: Man who wrote ‘Basic Instinct’ sells an original film pitch titled ‘Reliable Sources’ that could net him close to $4 million.

Hollywood’s multimillion-dollar scribe Joe Eszterhas has done it again.

The screenwriter of the hit 1992 erotic thriller “Basic Instinct” and MGM/UA’s controversial upcoming release “Showgirls” sold an original movie pitch to Paramount Pictures that could potentially yield him nearly $4 million, sources say.

Carl Franklin, whose highly anticipated thriller “Devil in a Blue Dress,” starring Denzel Washington, hits theaters in late summer, plans to direct the film that Eszterhas hopes to begin writing next month.

Titled “Reliable Sources,” the story is based on the screenwriter’s own real-life xperiences as a newspaper reporter and will explore journalistic ethics. It will center on an ambitious 22-year-old reporter whose actions while covering a breaking story result in the loss of human life.

“The question it asks is, what is the cost of the front-page byline both to the reporter and to those he’s writing about,” said Eszterhas, who in his early 20s (1967-71), was a “street reporter” for his hometown paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, covering everything from natural disasters to riots to crime. He then joined Rolling Stone as a senior editor, resigning in 1975 to write his first screenplay “F.I.S.T,” which became a 1978 movie starring Sylvester Stallone and directed by Norman Jewison.

Eszterhas says that while “Reliable Sources” will be fictional, “it’s a very personal story in the sense that I learned in those days that sometimes a very high price--on an interior, spiritual level--has to be paid for breaking a big, front-page story.”

The writer hatched the idea in November while having a casual conversation with Franklin about his journalistic experiences. “Blue Dress” producer Jesse Beaton and Ben Myron, both of whom produced Franklin’s 1992 low-budget hit, “One False Move,” and will also produce “Reliable Sources,” introduced the director to Eszterhas.

“We had no particular agenda,” recalls Myron, “other than we thought they’d get along personally. They hit it off and additionally this idea came out of it.”

Franklin says he was “riveted” by one particular story Eszterhas told him. “I had goose bumps and said, ‘We ought to do this.’ ” The director says he is always attracted to material that deals with “man’s relationship with God . . . morality and ethics.”

Eszterhas, who has scripted three movies for Paramount--”Flashdance,” “Sliver” and the currently shooting “Jade”--says that when it came to selling “Reliable Sources,” he wanted to pitch the idea only to that studio’s movie chief, Sherry Lansing.

Lansing says she immediately responded to the idea because “it taps into some of the contemporary problems journalists face in going after a story.”

She adds: “We’re thrilled to be in business with Carl Franklin. He’s a terrific director.”

The “Reliable Sources” deal is the latest in a string of multimillion-dollar script sales Eszterhas has racked up since the record $3-million purchase of his “Basic Instinct” in 1990. That precedent-setting deal elevated the power of top screenwriters in Hollywood to a new level.

In this latest transaction, sources say, Eszterhas will receive $1 million upon signing and another $500,000 in the course of writing a second draft. If the movie gets the green light, he’ll earn another $1.9 million, bringing the total deal to $3.4 million. Beyond that, if the film reaches a certain box office gross, he can potentially collect an additional $500,000.

“We keep trying to make strides for all writers with Joe and putting them in a position to protect their work,” said his International Creative Management agent, Guy McElwaine.

Eszterhas’ other recent multimillion-dollar deals include last year’s sale of “One Night Stand” to New Line Cinema and “Foreplay” to Savoy Pictures.