Expecto expensive!
Warner Brothers hopes to cast a spell on Harry Potter fans with its behemoth 31-disc, 19-pound “Harry Potter Wizard’s Collection” box set, out this Friday. But with a record-breaking suggested retail price of $500 and complaints that it lacks substantial new material, wannabe wizards are taking to their broomsticks in protest.
“Cruel, greedy, lousy, money-mongering, ungrateful — this is what Warner Brothers has become towards HP fans. As Ron would say, ‘Bloody hell!’ ” fumed Amazon reviewer M.G. Pollock.
A full week before its release, more than 250 Amazon reviewers had waved their wands and rated the limited-edition collection only one star out of five (it earned an overall average of just 1.7 stars). Those miffed muggles criticize the set as little more than a repackaging of previously released films, without coveted extended editions of later films.
“The extended-versions issue is a huge sticking point for the fans — this set is really the same old, same old,” Joey Gillis, a 32-year-old student from Nutley, NJ, grumbles to The Post. His withering one-star curse on the set (“Bottom line: not worth it. Tell WB to stop being cheap and milking this with crap box sets”) has been recommended by more than 1,100 Amazon customers.
Jonathon Rosenthal, a 33-year-old from the Upper East Side who organizes NYC’s Harry Potter meetup group, The Group That Shall Not Be Named, says he was initially intrigued by news of the box set, “but as I looked more into it I got less excited. For one, it is really expensive.”
To be fair, the half-a-grand official price tag (discounted to $345 on Amazon) buys five hours of never-before-seen bonus features, all eight films in the franchise (in Blu-ray, DVD and UltraViolet formats), movie memorabilia (like a fabric map of Hogwarts, color art prints and a Horcrux locket) and a parchment certificate of authenticity.
The elaborate display case is hefty and made of board-game-weight cardboard with faux leather treatment, brass hardware and secret pop-out nooks. And Jeff Baker, executive vice president of Warner Home Video, says “there’s no question” that all 30,000 of the sets will be sold out before the end of the year, based on high pre-order demand.
“This is the biggest, the best, there will be no more,” he tells The Post. “We don’t use the phrase ‘ultimate collector’s edition’ lightly.”
But some high-end Harry Potter collectors aren’t spellbound. Rosenthal says other collector releases, like “The Avengers” and “Inception,” arrive in sturdy suitcases or steel briefcases, while the Harry Potter display case comes in (admittedly sturdy) cardboard. “But it’s not of the quality that you’re looking for at that price,” he says.
Jennifer Levine, a 29-year-old from the Upper West Side who works as a publicist for “Auror’s Tale,” a Harry Potter-inspired Web series, says she’d love to own the collection but can’t conjure spending such big bucks. “When you’re a Potter fan, we tend to plan for things well in advance, like conferences and Quidditch tournaments and cosplay,” she explains.
For fans such as Levine, the studio plans to release a slimmed-down set with all of the collection’s filmed content but none of the bells and whistles — for a significantly lower price — in early 2013, says Baker.
Still, some Potter-heads admit to coveting the collector’s set. “The box is designed fantastically!” raves 21-year-old Cat Atchison, a member of The Group That Shall Not Be Named and a self-described “extensive Harry Potter geek.” She says she may save up for the set. “It’s exciting that all the movies are in one place in a little display box — it’s so pretty.”
Atchison says discussion forums on myhogwarts.co.uk — a Harry Potter social-networking site — are divided. “The fandom seems pretty split,” she notes. “Half of them really want it; half of them think it’s not worth it and just a ploy for more money.”
Movie insiders point out the hocus-pocus of repackaging series isn’t shocking for large franchises such as Harry Potter, James Bond, “Star Wars” or “Lord of the Rings.”
“You’re trying to get as much out of that cow as you can,” says a former DVD marketing executive for a major studio, who asked for anonymity to avoid jeapordizing his relationships. “You repackage it, you slice it and dice it, but ultimately it’s all just lipstick on a pig.”
However, he insists studios aren’t trying to bewitch casual viewers, but instead reward die-hard fans.
“There is a market for that kind of limited edition, high-end collector’s item,” he says, adding that the real goal is to get the box sets placed in holiday gift guides and catalogues, drawing a media spotlight back to the franchise.
Mission accomplio!