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Date Posted: 21:45:46 02/08/02 Fri
Author: Matt(Webmaster)
Subject: "Harry Potter" Heads Home

"Harry Potter" Heads Home
Feb 5, 2002, 6:35 PM PT

Watch out, ogre, your DVD throne is about to be usurped

Warner Home Video announced Tuesday that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is coming to home video and analysts are already predicting the goodie-laden DVD will supplant Shrek as the best-selling title in the growing format.

Both the DVD and VHS versions will be available May 28.

The videocassette, which retails for $25, will include five minutes of new footage. But it's the DVD set that really looks magical.

Potterphiles will need the Sorting Hat to sort out all the goodies in the just-announced DVD. Retailing for $27, the double-disc set includes such sure-to-spellbind extras as: scenes completed especially for the DVD; an interactive tour of Hogwarts (including stops at the Great Hall, Gryffindor Common Room, the library and classrooms) and Diagon Alley (Gringott's Bank, Ollivanders Wands and Eeylops Owl Emporium); a Quidditch game; bios on all the cast members and the Hogwarts ghosts. The disc also allows viewers to watch Harry in eight different languages.

DVD-ROM extras include a real-time tour of key scenes from the film, an interactive Sorting Hat, electronic trading cards, game demos, personalized owl emails and screensavers.

The first film based on author J.K. Rowling's wildly popular fantasy series has made several movie records disappear. Its $33.5 million opening-day tally broke the record set by Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace in 1999. And the kid sorcerer's three-day $90.3 million pot of gold shattered the weekend record held by The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

The film has already raked in $313 million, making it the highest-grossing film released in 2001 and ranking it eighth among the all-time domestic moneymakers. Its worldwide box office is approaching $1 billion.

All this means it's very likely that the Warners release will be setting some home video records, too.

"I think it could be the biggest title ever," says Peter Bracke, editor of dvdfile.com. "It's pretty much a slam dunk. I don't see Pottermania waning anytime soon. This will be a good release for kids in terms of the features, the packaging, the pricing and the release date."

Potter will have some catching up to do, however. Shrek, which has some magical appeal of its own, has already tallied up a gargantuan $420 million in video and DVD sales since its release last November.

Bracke also predicts that not one but two versions of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will crack the top 10 video charts, since Warner is releasing the film on DVD in both full-frame and widescreen formats.

About the only thing more formidable than the forthcoming disc is the marketing push behind it. The video release is the first part of a carefully plotted Potter campaign that will promote the whole franchise. Not only will Warners be pumping the video, but the video will also be used to hype the next novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is due this summer. The momentum will continue to build as the next film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, opens in November.

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