By Mary Jane Credeur

Bloomberg News

Starbucks Corp., seller of music CDs and co-producer of Ray Charles' triple-platinum ''Genius Loves Company'' album, will begin promoting movies and offering DVDs and soundtracks at its coffee shops to expand its entertainment offerings.

Starbucks' first movie promotion will be ''Akeelah and the Bee,'' a film produced by Lionsgate about a spelling bee, featuring Laurence Fishburne and Angela Bassett, that debuts in April. Starbucks will have spelling-related trivia games in its stores and promotions on its cardboard-cup sleeves for the movie, the Seattle-based company said Thursday.

The largest U.S. coffee-shop chain is adding DVDs and soundtracks at its 5,500 company-operated U.S. and Canada stores and expanding its music offerings to boost sales beyond coffee. Starbucks sold nearly 3.5 million CDs in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the first time the company has disclosed sales figures.

''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.''

Schultz already has ties to the movie industry. He sits on the board of DreamWorks Animation SKG, and he hired Ken Lombard, former head of Earvin ''Magic'' Johnson's Johnson Development Corp., to run the burgeoning entertainment division of Starbucks. The company doesn't break out results for the entertainment business.

The new DVDs and soundtracks won't be available at Starbucks stores outside the U.S. and Canada or at licensed shops inside supermarkets, bookstores and airports, spokeswoman Sanja Gould said. Starbucks's agreement to promote ''Akeelah'' doesn't include any other films by Santa Monica, California-based Lionsgate, whose parent company is Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Gould also said Starbucks has been meeting with Hollywood studios about possible film projects and plans to begin selling books later this year.

Starbucks has also been expanding its music business. In 1999 it bought Hear Music, a chain of music stores with locations in Seattle and Austin, Texas.

The company has since created larger Hear Music stores attached to Starbucks's coffee shops where customers can choose from more than 1 million song titles and burn their own CDs while sipping lattes.