Week in Review - June 27, 2004

Fortitude Films paid $1.8 million ($6.5 million if it gets made) for the rights to G.P. Taylor's novel, Shadowmancer. Cha-ching! The best part? The book hasn't even been written yet.

Theater lovers, beware. A tale of demons and chainsaws is revving up to steal your dollars. Evil Dead the Musical plays in Montreal, starting July 2. It's all here: great songs (including "What the Fuck was That?"), zombies doing somersaults, and the Blood Spray seating section. What's not to like? Get your tickets here.

At the box office this weekend, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 broke half a dozen documentary records, and is already the highest-grossing documentary of all time. The film's success marks another terrible business decision for Disney. Shrek 2 eases snugly against the $400 million mark, and is on course for $430-$450 million, which would place it as the third highest grossing film of all time, domestically. Still, Shrek 2 may find itself only the second highest grossing film of the year if Spider-Man 2 is the incredible success it looks to be.

Just as superheroes are all the rage again, thanks to Hollywood's countless comic book adaptations, a potentially real superhero of sorts has been discovered in Germany. In a story that sounds frighteningly similar to X-Men, a baby was born four and a half years ago with a gene mutation that allowed his muscles to grow to twice the normal size without any effort. At just under five years of age, the young boy is stronger than some adults. Scientists are already looking for a way to reproduce this gene mutation to cure muscular dystrophy or create an army of supermen to take over the world.