the wicker man

Edward Woodward, probably best known to U.S. audiences as crime-fighting ex-agent Robert McCall on the cool 80s series The Equalizer, has died at the age of 79.

Of course, before taking that role, Woodward had a long, distinguished film career, starring in such classic films as Breaker Morant and The Wicker Man. Long before The Equalizer he did a British series where he played a spy in the series Callan, which ran from 1967 to 1972.. He appeared in several other TV shows over the years, including The Defenders, The Saint, La Femme Nikita, CI5, Over My Dead Body, Nice Work, 1990, The Edward Woodward Hour, and many others.

This year he guest starred in several episodes of the classic British show EastEnders. He was also an accomplished stage actor and singer.

I often wonder why the networks still spend big money to get the rights to run big screen movies. At one time it was a big deal, when there weren't many options for seeing the movies after they had run in the theaters. But in this day of being able to buy DVDs and rent DVDs and the premium cable networks, are movies still a big draw for the networks?

USA and FX must think so. USA just bought the rights to run Casino Royale for 5 years, starting in June 2009. The cost: $20 million. Meanwhile, FX has picked up the rights for four movies for around the same price. The movies are The Departed, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, V For Vendetta, and The Wicker Man.

I say USA got the better deal.