Well, it turns out that Superman Returns has broken a box office record, after all. It had the best opening week at IMAX theaters for a Hollywood new release, bringing in $6.83 million (it also scored the IMAX a record per screen average of $89,804 domestically and $67,888 internationally). I guess it isn't that hard to imagine since IMAX is showing some of the film's scenes exclusively in the new 3-D format. I've been curious about the scenes, myself, but every time I check on tickets, they appear to be sold out for days (okay, I haven't checked on the morning show because I have a day job, but still). So far, Warner Bros. has been having a great success with its simultaneously releasing its blockbusters on IMAX. Before Superman broke the record, previous holders of the slot were Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Batman Begins and The Matrix Reloaded.

What does this news tell us? That people are willing to flock to the movies for big screens and for 3-D. The first reason is a given since nobody wants to sit in an auditorium with a screen not much bigger than their TV. The second reason should be good news for George Lucas, James Cameron and any of the other filmmakers trying to usher in the 3-D technology as cinema's saving grace. The only thing is, other theaters besides IMAX are going to need to embrace it too, since there are still too few IMAX screens to handle a major release without a simultaneous multiplex opening.

J.K. Rowling is killing two characters off at the end of the seventh, and final, Harry Potter book. I know this news more directly relates to literature than movies, but it will certainly affect the film franchise, and since I stopped reading the series after #5 (I nearly even gave up on the films, but I finally just saw Goblet of Fire and was surprised to find it is the first great Harry Potter movie), and the fact that the books have been discussed here before, I find it appropriate.

Because I didn't read the sixth book, I couldn't tell you with logic who the two might be, although just about everyone thinks one of them will be Harry. Even Rowling hints at this: "I've never wanted to kill him off before the end of book seven, because I always planned seven books and that's where I want to go." Does that mean she did want to kill him at the end? She also told Britain's Channel 4 on Monday that she understands the desire to kill off the main characters in the end so that nobody else can resurrect them after she's done.

Then again, she says of her most recent draft of the final chapter, "One character got a reprieve, but I have to say that two die that I didn't intend to die." So that could mean that Harry is not one of these two. Perhaps he's the one who got a reprieve? The thing is, if you think about her comments, there is no certainty that only two will die. Heck, she could have killed off every character but the saved one.

The best way that I can relate to this is, what if George Lucas had killed off everyone at the end of Return of the Jedi, except Chewbacca? Okay, I'm sure many would have enjoyed seeing the Ewok village go up in flames.

• Breaking News - Hong Kong action director Johnny To delivers this watchable Woo-alike about a police force that loses the support of the public when a robbery goes bad and is covered by a local news program. The set pieces are pretty tight, even if the drama and the statement To tries to make about the power and responsibility of the media doesn't fully come through.
• Free Enterprise: Special Edition - A self-effacing turn akin to Marlon Brando's in The Freshman and Pauly Shore's in Pauly Shore Is Dead is William Shatner, sending up the cult of personality that has followed him since the original Star Trek series ended its five year mission two years early in 1969. When fanboys Rafer Wiegel and Eric McCormack meet their boyhood idol, he is far from the super-cool man for all seasons they have long worshiped. He's bent on staging a one-man musical version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a great running joke that culminates in the brilliant payoff that is the Shatner/The Rated R rap duet, "No Tears For Caesar". Writer-director Robert Meyer Burnett has created a love letter, not just to Trek, but to anyone who has ever loved anything with fanatical passion, and this long-overdue 2-disc treatment gives it the respect it was not afforded when it was first released in 1999. Check out the Pop-Up Video style trivia track, which annotates the geekery, new special effects, the making-of feature Where No Man Has Gone Before, and the unaired TV pilot, Café Fantastique, which features the real fans who inspired this smart, hardy-har-har trek. A sequel, My Big Fat Geek Wedding, has been listed on the IMDB for nearly 3 years now, and Mindfire Entertainment's website features a rudimentary mention of it, though no firm details are available as yet.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Special Edition - Death, and the gloomy heft that comes with it, visits Hogwarts in the fourth and most satisfying installment in the ongoing series so far. When an evil thought vanquished literally rears its ugly head again, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine (Emma Watson) team up to expose it. Like the overwhelmingly dark Revenge Of The Sith, this is the first to bear the PG-13 rating (for "sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images"), though its decidedly down ending makes it feel more like The Empire Strikes Back. It is not unreasonable to expect studio Warner Brothers to keep their three leads on through Harry Potter and the As-Yet-Unwritten-and-Untitled Year 7 Story. This, of course, is despite the fact that they will be in their early 20's by then, but let us not forget that at least one of the 90210 kids was practically eligible for Social Security by the end of that run. Even at 157 minutes, the book has still been truncated, but it is doubly encouraging to know that kids will know what is missing and will sit still for that long in order to be able to go on smartly about it. The second disc is chock-full-o' extra goodies, and is available in full- and widescreen editions. A single disc version is also available.

Here's an insane fact: only five American films have ever made more than $600 million at the foreign box office, and three of them star a kid named Daniel Radcliffe - only The Prisoner of Azkaban fell short. (Gives you some idea of why he gets paid roughly a zillion dollars every time he takes a wizardly breath, huh?) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire recently join its predecessors in the illustrious group, thanks in part to returns of nearly $100 million in Japan, $84 million in the UK, and $62 million in Germany. The film easily outdistanced The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which, as the next-highest grossing film abroad this year, took in "only" $380 million.

In addition to the three Harry Potter films, the other two American movies to enjoy such intense popularity overseas were The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, which made $750 million, and James Cameron's 800 pound gorilla of a movie, Titanic, which took in an outrageous $1.2 billion.

Get ready, Potterites: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is coming - and it's Special! (Ok, sure, there's a single-disc version but, when the two-disc SE costs only $2 more, what possible reason is there not to go all-out? That's what I thought.) Hitting stores in March, the special edition is packed with features, including "never before seen footage" (whatever that means - if they were deleted scenes, I'm assuming it would say that), interviews with the movie's stars (including Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and the lovely Emma Watson), trading cards (woo hoo!), and "interactive features." In addition, there are featurettes on "the film's three separate Tri-Wizard tasks, the Yule Ball, Voldemort and the the other Tri-wizard competitors," which actually sounds pretty cool, particularly if they focus on how the effects are done.

And, if just one Potter movie at a time isn't enough for you maniacs, a box of all four special editions will also be made available on the same day, priced at a mere $73.

Though the feature list is not yet complete, the early world on the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire DVD is likely to have Potter fans pretty excited. The two disc set, which comes out March 7, will include deleted scenes (which have become a staple of the Potter discs), behind the scenes footage, and a variety of games, including "the Triwizard Tournament Challenge." The most notable feature, however, is a commentary track with director Mike Newell: this marks the first time such a track has been recorded for a film in the series.

In addition, it's rumored that at some point in the future (probably when they really, really need a cash infusion), Warner Brothers plans to go back and rerelease the DVDs of the first three films in the series, with new commentary tracks added.