Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

MOVIES

New ‘Bugs’ Bloopers: Disney is hoping to lure audiences to see its animated hit, “A Bug’s Life,” a second time by making the unusual move of altering the film while it’s still in theaters. What’s being changed is the set of funny animated outtakes that play along with the film’s final credits. Director John Lasseter explained: “We came up with so many great ideas [for the outtakes] that we ended up animating two sets and it was hard to decide which ones to use in the initial release. Now that we’ve had such an incredible response from moviegoers, we’re thrilled to be able to swap out the original bunch for a whole new group of ‘bloopers.’ ” The new set will begin running in theaters Friday. Meanwhile, the old outtakes can be viewed on the Web (at https://www.abugslife.com) beginning today.

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Japanese Reclaiming Godzilla: The Japanese film studio that created Godzilla is responding to Hollywood’s computer-generated take on the fire-breathing lizard by resurrecting the original character, played by a guy in a rubber suit. Three years after killing off the beast in a battle with another monster, Toho Co. said Monday that it will begin production in April on a new film, tentatively titled “Godzilla Millennium,” for release in December 1999. Godzilla fans mourned in 1995 when Toho announced it would stop producing the Godzilla series, which first hit the silver screen in 1954 and includes 22 films. A Toho spokesman said the company decided to resurrect Godzilla after a wave of nostalgia for the original’s clumsy rubber suit followed Hollywood’s disappointing big-budget version this year. “The shape of the American version of Godzilla was so different from the Japanese version that there was a clamor among fans and company officials to create a Godzilla unique to Japan,” he said.

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Palm Springs Honors: Motion Picture Assn. of America Chairman Jack Valenti will receive the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival’s first inaugural Sonny Bono Visionary Award during the festival’s awards gala Jan. 9. The honor--created in the memory of Bono, who founded the festival in 1989--recognizes an individual who “has shown new insight and has explored new frontiers within the film community.” Other festival honors will include the Lifetime Achievement Award to Debbie Reynolds, the Frederick Loewe Award for film composition to John Barry, and the previously announced Charles A. Crain Career Achievement Award to John Travolta.

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Meeting Joe Retirement?: Anthony Hopkins’ New York spokesman said Monday that he had no knowledge of a purported interview with the actor in the London tabloid News of the World in which Hopkins is quoted as saying that he’s quitting acting because he finds it “tiresome, disturbing and deeply distasteful.” “I don’t know if it’s true or not; we’ve been trying to reach Tony and haven’t been able to,” the spokesman said, adding, “But I find it hard to believe, and I’d take it with a grain of salt.” The News of the World story quotes the Oscar-winning actor, who is in Italy filming “Titus Andronicus,” as saying the film would be his last, noting, “I’ve got enough . . . money to live for the rest of my life. . . . I’m interested in music, I write and I like Los Angeles and I’m just going to drop out.” Hopkins also allegedly called acting “very bad for one’s mental heath.”

TELEVISION

1998 Highlights: Time magazine has made its selections for the best TV shows of ‘98, with the May series finale of HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show” leading the pack. The rest of the list, in descending order: Jimmy Smits’ “NYPD Blue” farewell, the president’s grand jury testimony, NBC’s “ER,” CNN’s 24-part “Cold War” documentary, PBS’ “Teletubbies,” ABC’s new comedy “Sports Night,” TV Land’s “An Evening With the Rat Pack,” the AMC channel and Showtime’s Stockard Channing-Laura Dern movie “The Baby Dance.” The magazine’s pick for the year’s worst show? May’s much-hyped “Seinfeld” finale, which Time called “unfunny and childishly defensive.”

PERFORMING ARTS

‘Monsters of Grace,’ Again: UCLA Center for the Performing Arts is bringing back the Philip Glass-Robert Wilson digital opera, “Monsters of Grace 4.0,” for one performance March 30 at 8 p.m. The work, performed at UCLA in April as “Monsters of Grace 1.0,” now has 13 computer animated scenes to be projected onto a large screen, accompanied by a live performance of Glass’ full-length score. When the work debuted, with six of those scenes not yet in place, L.A. Times music critic Mark Swed noted the work’s “richly captivating music,” “startling imagery” and “enchanting love poems,” but summed it up as “a work that still has the promise of a great Glass-Wilson collaboration, but one that has gone far astray.”

QUICK TAKES

Ballet Nacional de Cuba, led by General Director Alicia Alonso, will make its first L.A. appearance in 20 years with three performances of the full-length ballet “Giselle” at the Wiltern Theatre on Feb. 5 and 6. The performance is the first full-length “Giselle” performed in Los Angeles by a major company in more than a decade. . . . Elizabeth Smith, a curator at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art, has been named chief curator at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, effective Feb. 15. While at MOCA, Smith’s projects included “Cindy Sherman: Retrospective” and “At the End of the Century: 100 Years of Architecture.” . . . “Godfather of Soul” James Brown will do his first Internet chat today at 5 p.m. (at https://www.TWEC.com).