A few months ago we took a hands-on look at Digital Copy with Family Guy - Blue Harvest. The show's Star Wars parody came to DVD with an extra disc containing a digital file version of the feature which easily copied to a Video iPod, a PC, or a PC-file compatible device (like an Archos media player). It's a handy way to get a "portable" copy of the DVD you've bought, so you don't have to buy it all over again via download to the hard drive of your laptop or a portable video device. But what else is on the way for Digital Copy?· Fox has the biggest support for on-disc Digital Copy so far, but Family Guy was actually their second. Last November's 2-DVD version of Live Free or Die Hard was first. The Blu-ray version didn't have it, though, and it didn't support iPod copies yet either (leaving iPod users AND Macintosh users out in the cold). But this would quickly and easily transfer a nice-looking copy of the film's unrated cut to a PC or compatible device.· Fox then expa...
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Will Harry Potter stroll the Great White Way wearing little more than his eyebrows? Daniel Radcliffe says that Peter Shaffer's Equus, the stage play that unveiled itself — and the lad's Brit bits — to London earlier this year could hit Broadway in late 2008. "It will be amazing, but I will be terrified," admits the actor. "[Potter stepdad/Tony winner] Richard Griffiths said the most stupid thing you can do is underestimate the New York audience" — and/or the zoom lens on their fancy cell-phone cameras.
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Global box office tallies for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix have now reached the $700-million mark. Why, one more matinee, and the flick'll have earned almost as much as I have for filling in for Mitovich all week. Jennifer Garner is in talks to join Kevin Kline on Broadway this fall in a revival of Cyrano de Bergerac. Hey, she can't possibly tank worse than Julia Roberts did. Olive Oyl's man yis what he yis, and we love 'im for it. So Warner Home Video and King Features Syndicate have put out a four-DVD collection called Popeye the Sailor, 1933-1938, Vol. 1. Suddenly, I have a hankering for a can of spinach. And a can of whupass, too.
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Cowabunga, dude! The Simpsons Movie didn't just open big, it opened Homer's-belly big! With a haul of $71.9 million, it was not only the No. 1 flick of the week, it was also the fifth biggest debut of the year. Rounding out the top five are I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, with a $19.1 million take; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, adding $17.1 million to its kitty; Hairspray, catching another $15.6 million in its Miss Baltimore Crab nets; and the new Catherine Zeta-Jones romcom No Reservations, with a paltry $11.8 million. Of course, even Zeets' numbers looked pretty sweet compared to those of our beleaguered LiLo: Her new (last?) pic, I Know Who Killed Me, generated only $3.4 million in ticket sales. See ya soon in The Surreal Life house, honey.
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Memo to the Old Gray Lady: You do not mess with a woman well versed in potions and spells. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is Quidditching and screaming over an early, rather spoilery "review" of Deathly Hallows published earlier this week by the New York Times. "I am staggered that some American newspapers have decided to publish purported spoilers in the form of reviews, in complete disregard of the wishes of literally millions of readers, particularly children," the scribe reacted. With but a day to go before the series' finale goes on sale, all Rowling will say is, "Harry's story comes to a definite end." Yet "students" of Hogwarts may not have seen the last of its familiar trappings. "Because the world is so big, there would be room to do other stuff," Rowling tells the AP. "I am not planning to do that, but I'm not going to say I'm never going to do it."
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