A new entertainment era may have dawned in Germany with the unveiling of the country's first homegrown mega-musical, a lavishly promoted romp through the life of Marlene Dietrich called "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

He has lavishly promoted his racing idea, spending more than $9 million and, in the process, alienating potential supporters with his outspokenness.

What was dismaying to executives at Universal was that the sequel to the 1995 Australian sleeper hit "Babe," about an orphaned pig taken in by a charmingly eccentric farmer, earned generally positive reviews and was lavishly promoted by the studio.

Opening on Friday, "The Prince of Egypt," a $75 million (and that may be a low figure) animated version of the biblical saga of Moses, has been lavishly promoted and widely anticipated.

Audiences have also responded well to this lavishly promoted show.

Several executives said that the film had, essentially, two weeks to make the bulk of its money at the box office before the opening of "Godzilla," the most lavishly promoted film of the summer.

Their movie, "Beloved Infidel," about F. Scott Fitzgerald's romance with the columnist Sheilah Graham, was lavishly promoted by 20th Century Fox.

That would be tantamount to admitting that something was wrong with the lavishly promoted originals.

They would, I'm sure, respond that it's hard enough to interest British audiences in lavishly promoted films such as A Prophet or The White Ribbon.