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Toronto: Imax Corp. stock rose on Thursday after it announced that "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the third film in the wildly popular series, will be released in its big-screen format next year in the same month it enters regular theaters.
Imax, which makes screens up to eight storeys high, said the special-effects-laden film based on the best-selling book will be released in Imax and conventional theaters in June, 2004.
Warner Brothers, which produced the "Harry Potter" and "Matrix" films, also said it was in talks about an Imax release of the films "Polar Express" in November 2004 and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" summer 2005."
Shares of Mississauga, Ontario-based Imax, which is run largely from New York, rallied following the news, rising 50 cents, or 7 percent, to $7.65 on Nasdaq on volume of more than 610,000. In Toronto, the stock rose 68 Canadian cents to C$10.20 on volume of 40,000.
Imax stock rallied earlier this year after it said two sequels in the "The Matrix" series would be released in Imax theaters after being reformatted to fit the big screens using the company's technology.
The technology was also used to bring "Apollo 13" and "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" to Imax theaters last year.
Imax is counting on the conversion of Hollywood films to its format to fuel its main business of leasing and servicing its big-screen movie theater systems.
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