Home Media Magazine - Agent DVD - July 2008 - (Page DVD40) *TVFILES A DVD FUTURE BY STEPHANIE PRANGE FOR ‘FUTURAMA’ avid X. Cohen is revelling in the “Family Guy” effect. His animated sci-fi show “Futurama,” like Seth MacFarlane’s famed animated comedy, is making a comeback with the help of DVD. After Fox canceled “Futurama” in 2003, rabid fans, some of whom discovered it via reruns on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, made the studio take notice. “We actually gained fans while we were off the air,” says Cohen of the show, which he says suffered from a mercurial schedule during its initial run. “For the first time, people knew when it was on.” After “Family Guy” made a muchcelebrated comeback on DVD, which prompted its return to network television, “We thought, ‘There is hope!’” says Cohen, who served as executive producer and head writer for “Futurama,” which he co-created with “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening. “We started calling up 20th Century Fox, saying, ‘How about a DVD movie?’” Cohen recalls. “After about two years, they called and said, ‘Have you ever thought about a DVD movie?’” Now, Cohen and his team are not only in the process of producing four direct-to-DVD movies, but also are cutting new episodes from the features for Comedy Central. The first feature, Bender’s Big Score, came out on DVD last year, and The Beast With a Billion Backs debuted last month. DVD has been a great format for “Futurama,” Cohen says. “We were AgentDVD.com D ON DAVID X. COHEN’S DVD SHELF Futurama TM and © 2008 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved. always trying to jam in jokes. Now we can hide little jokes and secrets, and people can go freeze on it.” Another benefit is that the features are produced in widescreen and high-definition in anticipation of a Blu-ray release, and Cohen says the final two movies may be released on Blu-ray the same day as the DVD. Cohen and his team also had to adjust to writing full-length features instead of 22-minute episodes. Writers had to include pauses in the snappy dialogue to adjust the pacing to a feature, but the longer format also offered more freedom. “[On TV] week after week we were trying to do a movie plot, an epic science-fiction story, the universe at risk,” he says. “We always had to cut.” Another challenge was writing the features so that they could be sliced into episodes for Comedy Central. “Fortuitously, we did know during the writing process that was the plan,” he says. “We kept a careful eye to have three cliffhangers.” In episode form, viewers get little treats not on the DVD, such as a fake TV commercial. Cohen doesn’t know if there are any plans to release a DVD compiling the episodic versions of the movies. “It would be something only for the super collector,” he says, quipping, “However, I don’t want to discourage our fans from buying the same thing two, three times. They make great gifts.” There are four to five more minutes of material on the DVDs, and of course, the DVDs include extras TV viewers don’t get. Cohen’s favorite appears on Beast With a Billion Backs. “We have pretty much a full episode of ‘Futurama’ that not many have seen,” he says. The so-called lost episode is knitted together from interstitials on an old PlayStation game. The next “Futurama” DVD movie is Bender’s Game, a takeoff on Dungeons & Dragons, tentatively scheduled for Nov. 4, Cohen says. “It’s our first foray into fantasy,” he says. “It’s visually spectacular.” The fourth feature will be done sometime this fall and released in the spring, he says. As for following in the footsteps of “Family Guy,” Cohen would like to say “thanks” to MacFarlane. “I hope we continue to follow this trail you’ve forged.” Because he’s a comedy writer, Cohen says he prefers to watch other genres at home. “I prefer to watch dramatic stuff,” he says. Some of his favorites are Lawrence of Arabia and Blade Runner. “Probably my all time favorite movie is Dr. Strangelove,” he says. “It’s the grimiest possible subject matter, and yet I just cry with laughter.” AGENTDVD AGENTDVD JULY 2008 39 http://agentdvd.com
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