Potter Casts Spell Over Box Office

By Alla Startseva

Staff Writer

Published: January 14, 2003 (Issue # 834)

MOSCOW - Harry Potter, the bespectacled children's book hero, has worked his record-breaking magic on the local film world, leading "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," the movie version of the second book in J.K. Rowling's series, to the top of Russia's box office charts.

The movie earned some $3.1 million in its first week of release and $5.7 million in the two weeks immediately following its Dec. 26 premiere, Roman Isayev, a spokesperson for the film's local distributor Karo Premier, said Monday.

About 1.9 million of the tickets were sold in the two first weeks at the 44 Moscow theaters and 112 regional theaters showing the film, said Isayev, who expected the movie to run at least another 10 weeks.

"'Chamber of Secrets' has beaten all other films and is an absolute leader in Russia," said Feliks Rosenthal, an executive director of Independent Film Distributors Alliance, or ANKO.

The second Potter film by director Chris Columbus has outpaced all recent American blockbusters, ANKO reported, including the latest James Bond, Star Wars and Lord of the Rings offerings, trumping even its predecessor, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

WorldwideBoxoffice.com figures published this month rank "Soccerer's Stone" second only to "Titanic" in all-time box office receipts, having raked in $975.8 million worldwide since its debut.

Total box office tallies for movies shown in Russia doubled in 2002 to about $110 million, ANKO estimates, with $80 million garnered by Hollywood films.

Rosenthal said that 80 percent of the box office remains in Russia, with the cinemas keeping 50 percent of ticket revenues, and about 30 percent going to distributors.

The Potter movies have been successful, but so, too, have the books: The four published so far, of a promised seven, have sold more than 175 million copies worldwide in hard and soft cover and are published in at least 43 languages.

Moscow-based Rosman publishing house has released Russian-language editions of all four, selling a total 3.5 million copies.

The loveable boy wizard has his detractors. Last month a woman representing the International Fund for Slavic Literature and Culture publicly alleged that Potter was "drawing students" to Satanism and inciting religious extremism among young people. Prosecutors looked into these complaints and dismissed them.

With the substantial financial largesse linked to Harry Potter, it's little surprise that some enterprising souls have moved to tap the goldmine.

Dmitry Yenets' Tanya Grotter parody books have steadily gained on the children's book market, having sold over 170,000 copies, Interfax reported Thursday. Two radio programs have been launched as well, based on "Tanya Grotter and the Magic Double Bass" and "Tanya Grotter and the Disappearing Floor."