For those of you looking forward to the next installment in the Harry Potter series this fall… bad news. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been bumped off of its November 21, 2008 release date and will now hit theaters nearly nine months later on July 17, 2009.

Why the change? Warner Brothers says they think the summer season is better suited for a tentpole movie, and that’s what they’re hoping Half-Blood Prince will be. Of course, they knew that before they set the original November 21st date, so that doesn’t exactly make a lot of sense does it? They’re also blaming the writer’s strike saying, “we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films—changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of.” That second reason, makes sense. Basically, they see a window of opportunity there that wasn’t there before, and they want to take advantage of it.

Right now, the only other movie they’ll have to contend with on July 17 is Land of the Lost. Perhaps even more importantly, the weeks before and after its release are currently pretty barren. The week before Sony releases 2012, an easily beatable Roland Emmerich disaster flick. The week after it’s a hodge-podge of second rate horror flicks, family adventures, and budget animated movies. Land of the Lost is really the only serious competition anywhere in the vicinity, and if Universal Pictures has any sense they’ll move Land of the Lost to somewhere it’s less likely to be crushed by the still unstoppable waves of Potterphiles. Had they stayed in November, they’d have had to fight off movies like Australia, Soul Men, and Disney’s family movie Bolt.

I’m sure Half-Blood Prince will do well in the summer, Harry Potter movies always do. But am I the only one who feels like they belong in the holiday season? There’s something about Harry Potter’s world that lends itself to cold weather and Christmas lights. Harry Potter’s fall releases have always seemed just right. Maybe they can make more money in the summer, but I’d rather have my semi-annual dose of Harry Potter with a side of turkey and mashed potatoes.