BIG BELLYACHE

Cannon’s “Street Smart,� a contempo drama about an ambitious journalist who fakes a big story, hasn’t been much fun for star Christopher Reeve.

First, there were Teamsters picketing the NYC location for alleged “wages and benefits below area standards.� Reeve is on the Council of Actors Equity and “in sympathy� with unions, but a no-strike clause in his contract forced him across picket lines.

Then, last Monday, Reeve was sidelined with appendicitis. Director Jerry Schatzberg’s been shooting around him--Reeve’s expected back this week.

A Cannon spokeswoman claims the company is listening to union demands and that “Street Smart� is now “a union shoot.�

But Reeve still contends that Cannon is “having a meteoric rise, but they’re doing it by stabbing the below-the-line (crew) people in the back--or just being arrogant about them. Yet they’ll pay Sylvester Stallone $10 million--or whatever--to do ‘Over the Top’ (estimates of Stallone’s salary go as high as $15 million). They’ll entice the big names with heavy deals�--he admitted he’s being “very well taken care of financially� by Cannon--�and meanwhile, below-the-line, they’re just as chintzy as they’ve always been.�

Budget for “Street Smart� has been publicized as $7 million, but Reeve and Schatzberg think its closer to $5 million.