Director Peter Jackson has, in a very friendly, brother-to- brother way, whacked composer Howard Shore over creative differences on the King Kong score and brought in James Newton Howard as a replacement. Last-minute score replacements are usually a sign of trouble (it happened on Gangs of New York) but let’s not jump to conclusions. If I were Jackson I would make sure of one thing: the ceremonial drums emanating from the native ceremony on Skull Island (as heard from Carl Denham’s ship anchored a few hundred feet off the coast) would sound just like Max Steiner’s… they would sound crude and spooky and not in the least bit orchestral.

I haven’t confirmed this directly with Warner Bros., but a fairly well-planted exhibitor source tells me the running time of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Warner Bros., 11.18) has been “confirmed” at 157 minutes.

I’ve said it before: the snaggle tooth that Peter Jackson has given his big ape is, I suspect, a blade of grass that hints at what may be going on in the emotional universe of King Kong (Universal, 12.14). The snaggle-tooth is a way of Charlie Chaplin-izing Mr. Kong…of making him seem vulnerable and endearing. (But that’s Jackson…an incorrigible emotional underliner.) Harry Knowles agrees — he says “the wonky tooth [is] a bit lame” and gives Kong “a goofy look.” I’m just saying that the comparison shots that Harry has run (with and without snaggle-tooth) probably don’t mean anything. The tooth footage would almost certainly be locked in at this stage (wouldn’t it?). Beware the tooth…the tooth is the movie…beware the tooth…the tooth is the movie. Although I have to say the stills on the official Universal-Kong site are fantastic. This is going to have wonderfully composed, exquisitely lit visuals. Each and every still looks scrumptious.

The shooting of Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (Universal, 7.28.06), which stars Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, is generating talk among guys in the production-chat circuit. Before I pass this along, understand that similar yarns were spun during production of Mann’s Collateral (i.e., shooting and shooting with no end, unhappy crew, budget overruns, etc.) and look how that one turned out…brilliant. Remember also what Uma Thurman said in Pulp Fiction about guys gossiping with each other, and that the stuff I’m getting now is second-hand. That said, the Vice chatter is that “Mann, Foxx and the budget are out of control,” a friend confides. “One thing that has slipped out is that Mann’s inner circle is turning on him — they can’t deal with him anymore. My source says Farrell’s mullet hair style is the least of the problems. He also worked on Collateral and he wouldn’t say too much about Vice except that he feels like a character in ‘Devil’s Candy 2.’ Mann still doesn’t have an ending to the film and the production is going to Latin America for a month and a half. He said that a majority of the gossip coming off the set is true.” I don’t know about this at all. To me, Mann is the king and can do no wrong. I had a gut feeling about about this second-hand source when the Collateral stories were coming in, which is that he’s one of those whiners who likes his relaxation, doesn’t like to work long hours or do the hard-core thing in order to create lasting quality. In other words he’s a candy-ass, so I wouldn’t put that much stock in these stories…although those mullet reports are troubling. Has anyone heard anything from real men on the set (i.e., non-girls) in a position to actually know stuff?

Matthew Modine’s upcoming coffee-table book about his experience making Full Metal Jacket with Stanley Kubrick (“Full Metal Jacket Diary,” Rugged Land, 10.25) costs about $20 bucks on Amazon…which is a lot cheaper than Taschen’s $200 dollar The Stanley Kubrick Archives . The Publisher’s Weekly review says Modine’s writing “isn’t graceful” — I’ve read another comment claiming Modine adopts the syntax and attitude of his Private Joker character from the film — “but his insider’s view of events have enough acrid flavor and authenticity to compensate. The book is filled with Modine’s excellent photographs, which powerfully supplement the sometimes sketchy narrative. The stainless steel-covered book — each one laser-etched with a serial number — should become a collector’s item for fans of the legendary director.”

DVD distributors re-issue classic titles so often, each time claiming that the film has been beautifully remastered and made to look much better than before…that after a while the pitches don’t register. The marketing of Warner Home Video’s brand-new The Wizard of Oz DVD packages (both a two-disc and three-disc set, out 10.25) on the WHV website promises the same-old “dazzlingly restored picture”…but this time (and I can feel the skepticism before even saying this) it really is exceptional and the best-looking-ever because of a process called “edge detection.” The WHV marketers are figuring there’s no point in trying to reach average-Joe DVD buyers with technical particulars, but this new Oz is in the same class as those relatively recent WHV DVD’s of Gone With the Wind, Meet Me in St. Louis and Singin’ in the Rain. A special software program (called “Ultra resolution” on the disc’s Amazon page) that re-registers and re-aligns Oz‘s three-strip Technicolor separations brings all kinds of new details and textures to the eye. It does more than restore Oz to its former glory, blah, blah…it presents a degree of radiant color and needle-sharp definition than was ever visible in the celluloid versions. Fred Kaplan wrote an excellent explanation piece about the edge detection process on Slate last February.