With barely one movie under its belt, Starbucks is moving aggressively toward expanding its involvement in the entertainment business, seeking movies and books to promote in hope of duplicating the success it has had with music.

The retail coffee giant - which used its stores to promote "Akeelah and the Bee," a movie made by Lionsgate that opened over the weekend - was to announce Monday that it had signed an agreement with the William Morris Agency to find more movie and book projects to market. The aim is to have one book in Starbucks stores this year and at least two or three movies to promote and sell on DVD next year, with more projects in years to come. In the meantime, the company's small entertainment staff will move from Seattle, where Starbucks is based, to Santa Monica, California, this year to be closer to the heart of the entertainment industry.

"Akeelah and the Bee" is an inspirational tale about an African-American girl in Los Angeles who competes in a spelling bee. Starbucks is promoting the movie in places like the sleeves of its coffee cups, and the "Akeelah" soundtrack is on sale at the stores. The DVD of the movie is to go on sale at Starbucks in the autumn.

Howard Schultz, the company's chairman, said that in the wake of promoting "Akeelah" it had been deluged with material from film distributors who hope to be Starbucks' next movie partner. It became clear, he said, that the company needed more expertise in handling that work.

"We're not prepared in terms of our core business" to respond to such approaches "in a way that is timely," Schultz said from Seattle, explaining the plan to work with William Morris.

He said it was not Starbucks' goal to become an entertainment-business investor. "We have no intention of financing movies, or being traditional investors in movie projects," he sapromoting "Akeelah" it had been deluged with material from film distributors who hope to be Starbucks' next movie partner. It became clear, he said, that the company needed more expertise in handling that work.

"We're not prepared in terms of our core business" to respond to such approaches "in a way that is timely," Schultz said from Seattle, explaining the plan to work with William Morris.

He said it was not Starbucks' goal to become an entertainment-business investor. "We have no intention of financing movies, or being traditional investors in movie projects," he said, although the company's promotion of "Akeelah" gave it an undisclosed equity stake in that film.

Instead, Schultz said, the company will selectively link the Starbucks brand with certain kinds of movies and books in the belief that Starbucks customers trust the company, in essence, to choose their entertainment for them.

"We're looking for quality, and substance," he said. "We want to see our name associated with the kind of music, literature and movies that people will say, 'I'm glad Starbucks brought this to the marketplace.'" He gave "Crash" as an example of the kind of movie that Starbucks might promote. The film, which was about racial tension and was also from Lionsgate, was a sleeper hit at the box office and went on to win the Oscar this year for best picture.

In the music field, the company has already become a tastemaker in an industry still struggling with piracy and depressed sales. Starbucks sold 3.5 million compact discs in the 2005 fiscal year, promoting artists like Coldplay and Bob Dylan and introducing the group Antigone Rising and the singer-songwriter Sonya Kitchell. It does not provide separate revenue figures for its CDs.

Starbucks had its biggest success with a Ray Charles album in 2004, "Genius Loves Company," which sold 775,000 copies and went on to win eight Grammy awards.