Coming soon to a (home) theater near you -- movies that don't just encourage, but enable you to go online and interact with other viewers while you're watching.

Actually, the technology is already here and has been employed on a handful of Blu-ray discs over the past several months. But unless you're a new-tech "early adopter" and track these things online, it's likely you've not yet heard about it.

Well, get ready to hear a lot more about it by the end of the year.

In the Media & Advertising section of Monday's New York Times, we learn that the Walt Disney Company, "along with the broader entertainment industry," will soon be very publicly promoting movies on high-definition Blu-ray discs that will offer you the option of watching a movie "in tandem with friends in other locations and chat using a laptop, P.D.A. or cellphone. (Comments appear on the screen.)"

Furthermore, for family films -- Disney's historic bread and butter -- "parents who are not able to watch the film with their children can record a video message that will pop up during a designated scene as the child watches. Viewers will also be able to compete against others around the world at trivia."

Whether or not kids will welcome mom or dad's head popping on the screen at the moment the Little Mermaid opts for that pair of Jimmy Choo shoes, it's all part of a next-gen technology jump called BD Live, which augments (or ruins, depending on your point of view and/or age bracket) the movie-watching experience with a variety of web-enabled features, from downloadable trailers and "featurettes" to chat and instant-messaging functions.

Disney will start promoting the BD Live technology with the upcoming 50th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of Sleeping Beauty. After that, "all of the company's future Blu-ray titles will include BD Live features," reports the Times piece by Brooks Barnes and Eric A. Taub.

The article provides some good background on existing examples of BD Live's "killer app" technology already on our shelves. (Am I the only one whose skin goes cold at the thought of interacting in real-time with a dedicated network of Saw IV devotees while watching the dismemberments on my high-def big-screen?) Barnes and Taub also note the hurdles of technology upgrades -- for most consumers plain old DVDs are still just fine, thanks -- and the costs of Blu-ray 2.0 players and discs. Still, studio execs seem to be seeing these potential obstacles merely as marketing challenges.

And probably they are, at least for the generation of adults that's not as perpetually wired-in and "web-enabled" as the ranks of digitally dexterous consumers and media junkies coming up fast into an ever more wired world.

As for me, I do like the notion that I might one day have the option of watching, say, The Third Man or Pulp Fiction or WALL-E for the umpteenth time while video-conferencing with a college pal who's watching the same movie on the opposite coast. (Orson Welles' big reveal when the window light snaps on always has me wanting to shout "Yes!" to somebody within earshot.) I also like the notion that it's an option I'll be able to ignore without (fingers crossed) a studio's heavy hard-sell telling me I'm damn near paleolithic for doing so.

After all, this warm July day got a little chillier when I read this quote from Lexine Wong, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's senior executive vice president for worldwide marketing -- "BD-Live lets us have a direct relationship with the consumer, which we could never have with packaged media."

How "direct" (intrusive?) that "relationship" (high-def commercial spam?) with this "consumer" (I'm just a guy who likes movies on my own terms) will become remains to be seen.

So I'm interested in seeing how all this plays out. Already here on my desk I have advance copies of I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Urban Legend on Blu-ray, each box bearing Sony's snappy little "BD Live Enabled" logo.

All the same, I can't shake the feeling that the industry may be asking the wrong question:

"Our research shows that so many people watch TV with their laptop nearby," said Lori MacPherson, senior vice president and general manager for Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment North America. "Online gaming and texting are already popular. The question is, how do we harness this?"

Or is the question really, "Is this something worth 'harnessing' at all?"

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