Warner Bros. to Yank ‘Potter’ DVDs Off Shelves

DVD and Blu-ray sales are big business for all studios, with franchise titles and classics garnering billions. But the big wigs at Warner Bros. have decided on a bolder move: discontinue all "Harry Potter" DVDs starting Dec. 29, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows Part 2 and Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection which will be released on Nov. 11.

The Harry Potter franchise is the biggest movie series in history, making over $7 billion at the box office and $5.1 billion through various home entertainment media. Although they will be discontinuing the physical DVDs, Warner Bros. will continue to stream the movies through premium cable services and also keep related games on the market.

The move takes a page out of Disney's book. The studio is notorious for keeping their classic movies and off the shelf so that they can keep re-releasing new editions. Disney is currently releasing the "Diamond Edition" of movies such as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast. The "Bond" series also re-releases previous movies every time a new edition of the series hits theaters.

In my opnion, this is no more then a money-making exercise aiming to drive up sales at a higher price. They are preying on customers fears that the products will not be around for long and keeping it at an inflated price. I personally hope that this experiment fails, but I know that I will fall for it myself. The bigger fear is that other movie series with high sales will get the same treatment, such as Nolan's "Batman" films, the "X-Men" series and the many Pixar hits.

Either that or He Who Must Not Be Named has taken over Warner Bros.