Harry Potter with unprecedented price

Harry Potter with unprecedented price tag

PageSix.com’s Celeb News writer Bill Hoffmann tells us this astounding story in today’s issue:

Warner Bros. hopes to cast a powerful spell over the four major TV networks – and get one of them to shell out $70 million for the rights to air “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” The astounding sum reportedly being asked for the movie is more than twice what NBC paid when it forked over $30 million for the privilege of broadcasting “Titanic.”

“It’s obscene,” one network exec, who has already turned down the offer, told Time magazine.

A spokesman for Warner Bros. insisted no figure has been set. But the spokesman admitted the movie studio has had “informational” meetings with network brass at Fox, NBC, ABC and CBS.

What makes the $70 million price tag especially jawdropping is that Warner wants to make the deal four months before the movie is released. That means any network that buys it could be stuck with a colossal, money-losing turkey if the film gets bad reviews, and tanks at the box office. The networks have been shown a 15-minute reel of scenes from “Harry Potter,” but won’t be allowed a peek at the finished movie before a deal is struck.