'Harry Potter' Hits American Screens

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/12/2001 at 12:24 PM EST

Robin Williams, Sigourney Weaver and Sally Jessy Raphael are among the lucky ones. They did not have to wait in line on Sunday at New York's Ziegfeld Theater, where "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" held its American premiere. Reviews have been excellent. Anticipation is high. And, say reports, advanced-sale tickets to the lengthy movie based on J.K. Rowling's phenomenal book series about a boy wizard are already vanishing fast. All of the scheduled screenings are filling up fast, according to Rich King, spokesman for AMC Theatres, which has 2,792 screens in the U.S. "Most advance tickets are bought in pairs, and in this case every time somebody buys tickets it's four to five tickets. That tells us that a whole lot of families are planning to attend the first weekend together," King told Reuters. Sales this early are unusual, he added. "Most advance ticket sales usually peak two to three days before the show," he said. "It's never anything like this." In other news of "Harry," a special screening of the $125 million movie in Washington, D.C., on Sunday was greeted by a small band of protesters from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, accusing the Coca-Cola Co. of using its sponsorship of the movie to peddle junk food to children. "To characterize our sponsorship of the film and our promotion of the magic of reading as inappropriate and to infer a connection with health and wellness of children simply misses the point for the sake of sensationalism," Coca-Cola spokeswoman Susan McDermott said in a statement on Sunday. The soda giant has pledged $18 million to literacy efforts as part of its campaign.