Danny DeVito is one busy guy. The 67-year-old’s currently shooting the eighth season of his TV sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,’’ which bows Oct. 11 — a day before his latest movie comes out. And he’s hoping to repeat his London stage triumph in Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys’’ this season or next on Broadway.
He’s also working the phones to promote the Blu-ray releases of two of the more famous films he’s directed — the biopic “Hoffa,’’ starring his pal Jack Nicholson, and “The War of the Roses,’’ a dark comedy with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. They’ve just been issued as part of Fox Home Entertainment’s new Filmmaker Signature Series.
“I actually called the company and said, ‘Let’s do something with these movies,’ ’’ says DeVito, a self-described techie who approved the new high-definition video transfers. “I was just blown away by the Blu-ray of ‘Roses’ because you can see all kind of details, like set dressing that we put in to enhance the mood.’’
DeVito hadn’t appeared onstage since a 1976 off-Broadway production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’’ with Kirk Douglas — which brought him to Hollywood three years later for the Oscar-winning movie version with Nicholson and, in 1978, the long-running sitcom “Taxi.’’
It was a five-month postponement forced by a “Sunny’’ cast member’s pregnancy that allowed DeVito to accept an “out of the blue’’ offer to star opposite Richard Griffiths in the revival of “The Sunshine Boys’’ on London’s West End.
“It was a total blast, a whole different lifestyle, performing in 106 shows, two on Wednesday and two on Saturday,’’ says the effusive DeVito, who shared an Oscar for producing “Erin Brockovich.’’
“There’s juice that comes from performing in front of a live audience, just like we did with ‘Taxi,’ ’’ he adds. “You have dinner after performing, and then you go to sleep. The newness of the experience just blew me away.’’
DeVito says there are plans to transfer the critically acclaimed production about battling vaudevillians to Broadway once they iron out any scheduling issues.
In the meantime, New Yorkers can see him play a downtrodden shower-door installer in “Hotel Noir,” a small indie thriller, set in 1958, that opens Oct. 12.
“It’s kind of a quirky movie,’’ he says. “I had dyed my hair white for ‘Sunshine,’ so just on a whim I decided to become a blond for this film. And then it turns out they’re shooting in black and white.’’