'Godzilla' Is a Smash

Critics may not love "Godzilla," but he's eating up the box office. The lizard-loose-in-Manhattan movie from Sony earned $12.5 million in its first two days, giving the monster flick an impressive opening take heading into the Memorial Day weekend, the official start of the summer movie season. Its debut earnings surpassed those of both "Mission: Impossible" and "The Lost World: Jurassic Park." "Godzilla," with $120 million in production costs, is being closely watched by Hollywood moviemakers to see if the upturn in business sparked by "Deep Impact" will continue through the summer months, when studios typically take in half their ticket revenue. The film, which is showing in a record 3,310 theaters on an unprecedented 7,000-plus screens, is competing with "The Horse Whisperer" (a romance) and the animated feature "The Quest for Camelot."