Starbucks moves into the movie business

Once upon a time, in a simpler age, it was enough to walk into a coffee-shop, hand over your money and walk out with your drink.

That was then; this is now.

In addition to the menu of unlikely-sounding concoctions through which customers must navigate, coffee shops have become marketplaces for all manner of other non-coffee items from CDs to books.

Now Starbucks, the world's biggest coffee-store chain, has announced its involvement in another venture: films.

The more than 10,800 Starbucks shops in the US and Canada are to start promoting the upcoming film Akeelah and the Bee.

The movie, with Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett, is about a spelling contest.

Starbucks will sell DVDs of the film and CDs of its soundtrack and place spelling-related trivia games in its stores and advertisements on the cardboard sleeves it places around its coffee cups.

The company will receive an undisclosed share of the film's box-office takings.

"Over the past year, we viewed countless films and spoke with numerous studios in pursuit of finding the perfect film," Starbucks' chairman, Howard Schultz, said.

"Just as we have demonstrated with music, we believe Starbucks can ultimately change the rules of the game for film marketing and distribution."Starbucks already sells millions of music CDs and was co-producer of a triple-platinum selling album of Ray Charles' songs, Genius Loves Company.

This year, the store plans to start selling books.

The move represents just the latest attempt by Starbucks to move into the world of entertainment in an effort to make it stand out from its rivals.

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal reported that over the past few years, Mr Schultz has developed relationships with Hollywood executives, become a board member of DreamWorks Animation and regularly visits the Sundance Film Festival.

- INDEPENDENT