Tickets for the first movie in the Rings trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, went on sale yesterday (in NZ), immediately outselling Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Wellington, with "hundreds" of sales reported by tired Hoyts movie staff in its Lower Hutt, MidCity and Manners Mall cinemas. [More]

UPDATE
Just a quick brickbat for some sloppy journalism. Compare our eyewitnesses Mr Tadpole and Glaurung, with the rather breathless hype of The Dominion, which still thinks the NZ public will see LOTR first. Umm, wrong!