Thursday, 5 February 1998

DREAM ON: DreamWorks SKG's next two "big" films are fleeing fierce holiday competition. Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan has dumped its June 5 release date, running from Godzilla's Memorial Day Weekend footprint to July 24, the slot that launched Air Force One last year. Unfortunately, Harrison Ford is already camped out there with Six Days, Seven Nights. Zorro's there, too. Something's got to give. And DreamWorks' first animated offering, Prince of Egypt, the Moses musical, is paddling from a Thanksgiving collision with Disney and Pixar's second 100 percent computer-animated film, A Bug's Life, to the December 18 slot that did so well for them with Mouse Hunt this year. Looks like it will be another year for Steven, Jeffrey and David without a $100 million picture.

JUST WONDERING: Will anyone get near Godzilla? Studios are giving the film a full three weeks to rampage before offering any resistance to the big lizard. What will they do next year with Star Wars coming, concede the entire month of June?

CHAINED TO THE GRIDIRON: Fox will develop a Sports Illustrated article about the big game between Texas State High School Champs, Trinity Christian Academy, and the Giddings State Home. That would be a youth prison, folks. One possible title for this kids' version of The Longest Yard? Catholics vs. Convicts: The Movie.

BARNEY FIFE RETURNS: You've all been waiting for it! Jim Carrey is ready to start work on a remake of the Don Knotts classic The Incredible Mr. Limpet. The story about a man who turns into a Nazi-hunting animated fish will use state-of-the-art human to fish computer technology. Glub, glub, glub.

ALWAYS BET ON BLACK: Fox 2000 continues to be the best home for black filmmakers in Hollywood. Since hitting the jackpot with Soul Food, the team of George Tillman and Robert Teitel are going full speed ahead. They are working on "Soul Food: The Sitcom" for next fall, a drama about the Navy's first black salvage diver called, simply, Navy Diver, and a romantic drama called Love Supreme. You go, boys!

READER OF THE DAY: From Arriflex: "I didn't love Half Baked, I did enjoy parts. The theater I saw it in was packed with kids that looked too young to be in an R-rated movie. But listening to them laugh and holler and go nuts, one would think this year's Oscar will go to Half Baked." -- Arriflex

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