Lorenzo Di Bonaventura

The Scene: Tuesday's premiere of Warner Bros.' "Lethal Weapon 4" at Mann's Chinese with an after-party at Yamashiro restaurant. On the action-comedy franchise's fourth emergence, star Mel Gibson said, "This one's in the spirit of the others. It's got a few more yuks and a little more heart." The Event: Understatement was not the evening's theme.

The Scene: Tuesday's premiere of Warner Bros.' "Eraser" at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It was a carnival. Two blocks of Hollywood Boulevard were blocked off. The sidewalks were lined by what the Fire Department estimated as roughly 3,000 fans. (One held an inscrutable hand-lettered sign that read: "Arnold is the bomb.") Plus enough film crews to cover the Olympics. There were five from Japanese television alone. Five. Finland had to struggle through with just one.

Concerned about a ballooning budget and a script that "wasn't good enough," according to one executive, Warner Bros. Studios on Thursday put its "Superman" project on indefinite hold. The postponement is the third such production delay on the film, to be directed by Tim Burton ("Batman") and starring Nicolas Cage. Based on a series of comic book episodes about the death and rebirth of the mild-mannered superhero, the film had originally been slated to premiere this summer.

The Scene: Wednesday's premiere of Hollywood Picture's "G.I. Jane" at the Village theater in Westwood. The film was described by one industry savant as a "chick empowerment flick." In it, Demi Moore goes for a shaved head and ultra-buffed physique to become a Navy SEAL. "When the filming was done," said the actress, "I was like, 'Oh, my goodness, I really need to look over this body and get some hair.'

The Scene: Thursday's premiere of Warner Bros.' and Amblin's "Twister" at both the Village and Bruin theaters in Westwood with a party following at the Armand Hammer Museum. The savage-power-of-nature film was rated PG-13 for "intense depiction of very bad weather." Said a studio exec: "The line speaks for itself."

A weekly listing of local events compiled by the SoCal Tech Calendar (http://www.socaltechcalendar.com). Wednesday Zone Club The quarterly networking meeting of the Zone Club, with a panel on fostering entrepreneurship through good works, investment and support of education and nonprofits. Panelists are Matt Miller, nationally syndicated columnist, NPR commentator and co-host of "Left Right Center"; Steve Soboroff, senior advisor to Mayor Riordan and L.A.

"The women interviewed for this issue didn't want to talk about the glass ceiling or gender bias. They wanted to talk about work," said Premiere magazine's editor in chief, James Meigs, who stood in front of a big screen image of Meryl Streep on the cover of the magazine's "Women in Hollywood" special issue.

After considering a list of candidates that included Robert Zemeckis, Brad Silberling and Terry Gilliam--and being turned down by Steven Spielberg--Warner Bros. has signed "Home Alone" director Chris Columbus to take the reins on "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," which is already shaping up to be the event film of summer 2001. Speaking from Scotland where he is meeting with Potter creator J.K.

The Scene: In a sense, a dual premiere--for the filmmaker and the film. At Monday's launch of PolyGram Films' first release, "The Game," at the Chinese Theater, a number of guests noted the irony between the title and the risky business one of the world's largest record companies is plunging into. One guest compared the night to a high-stakes debutante ball.