Week in Review - July 05, 2004

Millionaire Godzilla fans rejoice! After Godzilla: Final Wars comes out, a boxed set of every Godzilla flick will be released. That's 27 movies in one set, which costs 95,000 yen or 870 US Dollars ($32 per movie).

MPAA boss Jack Valenti is retiring and being replaced by Dan Glickman. By all reports, Glickman is a clone of Valenti, only funnier (but what, you ask, could be funnier than comparing the VCR to the Boston strangler?). I guess the idea is that a sense of humor will appease millions of angry music fans and get them to buy overpriced CDs again.

One of the best actors in history, and a pioneer of 'method' acting, is dead. For nearly 50 years, Brando turned out one memorable performance after another. He was perhaps best known for his iconic role Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather, but in his earlier works like A Streetcar Named Desire and On the Waterfront, Brando was clearly a generation ahead of the rest in his acting abilities.

Punisher scribe Jonathan Hensleigh has been hired to write and direct a remake of The Naked Jungle from 1954. The film revolves around a farmer who must defend his chocolate plantation from a 2-mile by 20-mile column of army ants. The movie fit perfectly with 50s cinema like Attack of the Giant Leaches and Radar Men from Mars, but will today's audiences be able to enjoy a picture like this? Judging from the success of Scooby-Doo and its sequel, I'm betting 'Yes.'

At the box office this weekend, Spider-Man 2 raked in an estimated $180 million over the 6-day, Wednesday-Monday weekend, beating the previous 6-day record by a cool $35 million. Even at $180 million, the movie came in about $20 million under most estimates, and may have troubled catching Shrek 2, which looks to finish with around $430 million. Spider-Man 2 has made more in 6 days than all but a few dozen blockbusters have made in their entire run, and yet it is a slight disappointment. It's time for Lucifer to break out the earmuffs.