How similar are the new Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films

A.� Movie analysts are predicting the two films, out later this year, will be the biggest this century. They are both from the same genre - of magic and fantasy - and there are surface similarities. Both stories fall into a standard epic adventure format - a child (or hobbit), without parents, drawn hesitantly into adventure with two or three close friends, reluctant at first to use special powers, tested against increasingly powerful villains, then coming to realise the powers must be used for good, or because others are dependent on him.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is, however, essentially a boarding-school romp and a children's detective story, with a well-researched magic, based on Greek mythology and alchemy.

Lord of The Rings is a huge works, which in its time, has been hi-jacked by all sorts of thinkers from socialists to fascists.

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Q.� Who wrote the books

A.� Joanne Rowling called herself JK on the dustsleeve so boys wouldn't think the novels weren't written by a woman. She finished writing Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1996 and went to nine different publishers before Bloomsbury gave her a �2,500 advance. Today she is worth an estimated �85 million, the books have sold over 116 million copies and have been transalted into 47 different languages in 200 countries.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 and died in 1973. His first book was The Hobbit (or There and Back Again) in 1935.

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Q.� When will are the films out - and how successful are they likley to be

A.� Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone premiered at London's Leicester Square Odeon on Sunday and is out on general release on November 16. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings is released on December 19.�

Cinema experts are predicting that in any multi-screen complex, seven or eight screens will by the Christmas holidays be showing one or the other film; the Potter film is in some places already booked solidly for weeks ahead, and there are understood to be 100,000 corporate bookings. Coca-Cola has negotiated with author JK Rowling, the biggest marketing tie-in in history, worth �100 million. The head of distributors AOL Time Warner said recently the film could be bigger than Star Wars.

The Lord of the Rings film, the first of three made over the past two years in New Zealand for a record amount of money - the overall budget, �210 million, was three times that of Titanic, and has launched a worldwide trailer for the first film, carefully leached out on the internet, which has attracted millions of hits already.

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Q.� How much money will they make

A� The biggest question will be whether they make enough money to sustain their own series. The Tolkien epic, headed by director Peter Jackson, has most to lose if the film flops, having spent money already filming the two other books of� the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Potter director Christopher Columbus has the option of directing the first three films. JK Rowling has written four books, with another three planned.

Rowling spent much time on the set of the film, advising technicians on the magic and wizardy, and is said to be satisfied the crew have brought to life Hogwarts Academy.

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By Katharine MacColl