Problem: Dreamgirls is a 2006 American romantic musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name by composer Henry Krieger and lyricist/librettist Tom Eyen, Dreamgirls is a film a clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and one of its acts, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit, Michigan girl group known as the Dreams and their manipulative record executive. The film adaptation of Dreamgirls stars Jamie Foxx, Beyonce, Eddie Murphy, and Jennifer Hudson, and also features Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose and Keith Robinson.

Dreamgirls premiered on December 4, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, where it received a standing ovation. The film's Los Angeles premiere was held on December 11 at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills. Similar to the releases of older Hollywood musicals such as The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and West Side Story, Dreamgirls debuted with three special ten-day roadshow engagements beginning on December 15, 2006 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York City, the Cinerama Dome in Los Angeles, and the AMC Metreon 15 in San Francisco. Tickets for the reserved seats were $25 each; the premium price included a forty-eight page full-color program and a limited-print lithograph. This release made Dreamgirls the first American feature film to have a roadshow release since Man of La Mancha in 1972. Dreamgirls earned a total of $851,664 from the roadshow engagements, playing to sold-out houses on the weekends. The film's national release, at regular prices, began on December 25. Outside of the U.S., Dreamgirls opened in Australia on January 18, and in the United Kingdom on February 2. Releases in other countries began on various dates between January and early March. Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide. DreamWorks Home Entertainment released Dreamgirls to home video on May 1, 2007 in DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray formats. The DVD version was issued in two editions: a one-disc standard version and a two-disc "Showstopper Edition". The two-disc version also included a feature-length production documentary, production featurettes, screen tests, animatics, and other previsualization materials and artwork. Both DVD versions featured alternate and extended versions of the musical numbers from the film as extras, including the "Effie, Sing My Song" scene deleted during previews. Both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions were issued in two-disc formats. Dreamgirls was the first DreamWorks film to be issued in a high definition home entertainment format. As of 2017, total domestic video sales to date are at $95.1 million. A "Director's Extended Edition" of Dreamgirls was released on Blu-Ray and Digital HD on October 10, 2017 by Paramount Home Media Distribution. This version, based on edits done for preview screenings before the film's release, runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical version and features longer musical numbers (including songs and verses cut during previews) and additional scenes.

How was the opening weekend box office?

Answer with quotes: Dreamgirls eventually grossed $103 million in North America, and almost $155 million worldwide.

Problem: Ernest Edward "Ernie" Kovacs (January 23, 1919 - January 13, 1962) was an American comedian, actor, and writer. Kovacs's visually experimental and often spontaneous comedic style influenced numerous television comedy programs for years after his death. Many individuals and shows, such as Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jim Henson, Max Headroom, Chevy Chase, Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Dave Garroway, Uncle Floyd, and many others have credited Kovacs as an influence. Chevy Chase thanked Kovacs during his acceptance speech for his Emmy award for Saturday Night Live.

Kovacs's father Andrew emigrated from Hungary at age 13. He worked as a policeman, restaurateur, and bootlegger; the last so successfully that he moved his wife Mary, and sons Tom and Ernie, into a 20-room mansion in the better part of Trenton. Though a poor student, Kovacs was influenced by his Trenton Central High School drama teacher, Harold Van Kirk, and received an acting scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1937 with Van Kirk's help. The end of Prohibition and the Depression resulted in difficult financial times for the family. When Kovacs began drama school, all he could afford was a fifth floor walk-up apartment on West 74th Street in New York City. During this time, he watched many "Grade B" movies; admission was only ten cents. Many of these movies influenced his comedy routines later. A 1938 local newspaper photograph shows Kovacs as a member of the Prospect Players, not yet wearing his trademark mustache. Like any aspiring actor, Kovacs used his class vacation time to pursue roles in summer stock companies. While working in Vermont during 1939, he became so seriously ill with pneumonia and pleurisy that his doctors didn't expect him to survive. During the next year and a half, his comedic talents developed as he entertained both doctors and patients with his antics during stays at several hospitals. While hospitalized, Kovacs developed a lifelong love of classical music by the gift of a radio, which he kept tuned to WQXR. By the time he was released, his parents had separated, and Kovacs went back to Trenton, living with his mother in a two-room apartment over a store. He began work as a cigar salesman, which resulted in a lifelong cigar-smoking habit. Kovacs's first paid entertainment work was during 1941, as an announcer for Trenton's radio station WTTM. He spent the next nine years with WTTM, becoming the station's director of Special Events; in this job he did things like trying to see what it was like to be run over by a train (leaving the tracks at the last minute) and broadcasting from the cockpit of a plane for which he took flying lessons. Kovacs was also involved with local theater; a local newspaper published a photograph of him and the news that he was doing some directing for the Trenton Players Guild in early 1941. The Trentonian, a local weekly newspaper, offered Kovacs a column in June 1945; he named it "Kovacs Unlimited".

anyone else he worked with?

Answer with quotes:
for the Trenton Players Guild in