Hollywood spins off Spider-man’s web
Fueled by the phenomenal box-office success
of "Spider-Man" (the sequel debuts June 30), Hollywood
is spinning out a slew of big-budget films about superheroes
who are part human, part bug.
Timed to coincide with the onset of mosquito
season are potential summer blockbusters like "Ladybug-Man,"
"Wonder Worm" and "Captain Earwig."
Executives at Mandible Entertainment are already
predicting Oscar nominations for the poignant story of Franz
Kaufman, a mild-mannered entomologist by day who scurries
behind his refrigerator at dusk and metamorphoses into …
"Cockroach-Man," a crusty crime-fighter whose special
powers enable him to survive nuclear holocausts and repeated
stompings.
"Praying Mantis-Woman" stars Angelina
Jolie as a lanky green supervixen who seduces adversaries
with her sensuous triangular head and bulbous bedroom eyes,
then mates with them and eats them alive.
George Clooney and Michael Keaton are said to
be vying for the title role in "Gnatman," a dark
thriller about a wealthy Gotham City businessman who dons
a tiny mask and cape to annoy archvillains, making them so
itchy they can’t concentrate on perpetrating evil.
"Dung Beetle-Man" is the story of
Steve Scarab, a tormented waste treatment plant worker who
falls into a vat of radioactive effluent and emerges with
a rancid but impenetrable exoskeleton and the ability to smother
foes in his highly toxic feces.
"Sergeant
Tapeworm" features a parasitic crime-buster who infests
the bad guys’ digestive tract and gnaws like mad until they
no longer have the stomach to commit diabolical deeds.
And movie fans are expected to flock like locusts to see cotton-pickin’
criminals laid low by "Boll Weevil: Enemy of Evil."
The emerging insect-action genre relies on a
familiar formula: Colorful champions distinguished by their
rippling thorax muscles team up with trusty sidekicks like
Aphid, Flea and Chigger to battle repellent archvillains like
Lord Maggot, Venus Fly Trap and the nefarious Woodpecker.
The genre also features unique musical styles.
"Grasshopper-Man," for example, hums with a lazy,
haunting soundtrack provided by the tympanal organs of the
Caped Cicadas.
Hollywood is also buzzing about a string of
campy Bee-Movies. "The WASP" chronicles the comic
misadventures of Whitey Saxon, an uptight Protestant mud dauber
living in a colony of angry black militant hornets. And "Queen
Bee-Man" features rock star Sting as a transvestite hive
boss struggling to keep his true gender a secret from his
faithful but suspicious sidekick, Drone.
Even the adult-film industry is getting into
the act with the steamy multiple-organism romance, "Katydid
Dallas and Johnny Inch-Worm."
Meanwhile, don’t adjust your antennae. Bug fare
is also creeping onto the small screen with the major networks
set to debut "The Pest Wing" and "Who Wants
to Be a Millipede?"
Also at the movies:
Green
Eggs & Hamlet
Tinsel town terror
Jesus Christ, box-office superstar