General keeping eye on kids

Bradenton, Fla. — Retired Gen. Tommy Franks has signed on to be the spokesman for a company that uses global positioning system technology in teens’ cell phones to let parents know how fast they’re driving.

Franks will be the official face of Teen Arrive Alive. The organization aims to get teens to carry a cell phone containing a GPS chip that sends out regular signals letting parents know where they are and how fast they’re going.

If a certain predetermined speed limit is passed, an alarm will go off in the cell phone and parents will be notified.

“As a parent, I know it is not only my right, but also my responsibility to keep an eye on and protect my children,” Franks said. “If I know where my kids are, where they’re going, how they’re driving and how fast they’re traveling, I can counsel them before an accident occurs. I can help protect them.”

Backstreet Boy goes holy

Franklin, Tenn. — Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell has signed a deal with Christian label Provident Music Group’s Reunion Records.

“This has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little boy, singing in church in Kentucky,” Littrell said Wednesday.

Littrell, 29, said that singing with the Backstreet Boys was a “12-year steppingstone” to making his decision, and he hoped fans would realize through his music “that standing up for what you believe in is what’s important.”

He will release the single “In Christ Alone” on an upcoming WOW Christian Music compilation album next year. That will be followed with the debut of his solo album on the Franklin-based label.

Littrell also plans to tour with the Backstreet Boys, who are scheduled to end a three-year hiatus with a new project in March.

Godzilla racks up big bill

Tokyo — It won’t be immediately clear whether “Godzilla: Final Wars,” which opened in Japan last week, has broken any box office records. But the giant radioactive reptile’s 28th film already has set the bar higher in one way: its cost.

Toho Co. executive producer Shogo Tomiyama said the studio shelled out $19.3 million, small by Hollywood standards, but twice that of any of Toho’s past Godzilla movies.

“We wanted to make the best Godzilla movie ever,” Tomiyama explained Wednesday at a news conference.

Marking Godzilla’s 50th anniversary, “Final Wars” has the movie monster traveling around the world to fight old foes, as well as the new mysterious Monster X.

Tomiyama said Toho’s filming on locations over 100 days required a bigger staff than usual.

Orchestra to set tour record

New York — And you thought the Grateful Dead toured a lot.

The New York Philharmonic will set the Guinness World Record for “the most concerts performed by a symphony orchestra” with concert No. 14,000 on Dec. 18.

Sir Colin Davis will conduct the orchestra in works by Mozart, Britten and Haydn. The concert also will feature the Philharmonic debut of mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

Board chairman Paul B. Guenther said the orchestra was thrilled to be recognized for its 14,000th concert.

“In the course of our 163 years, we have commissioned 128 new works, and performed 485 world premieres and 443 U.S. premieres, including music that has become a staple of the classical repertoire,” he said Wednesday.

Birthday: Raven

Actress Raven is 19. Actor Harold Gould is 81. Actress Susan Dey is 52. Actor-director Kenneth Branagh is 44. Actress Nia Peeples is 43. Actor Michael Clarke Duncan is 41.