Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Pushed Back To 2009

By Josh Tyler: 2008-08-14 18:46:57

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Pushed Back To 2009

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.

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Helen
September 1, 2008 at 22:59

I dont think it matters when WBs release this film, it will still make them millions. And Why?? Because of all of the children who read those wonderful books and became caught up in the magic. Those very special fans who bought the books, bought tickets to see the movies, bought the DVDs, bought the various Harry Potter merchandise.

Those are the special people that Warner Bros are disappointing. The true fans who were there at the beginning. The children. And why? So they can make more money. Its an absolute disgrace and they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

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Kenneth
August 14, 2008 at 22:25

What about those that were planning to attend the November Premiere Screening (and already bought airline tickets to fly to London), What about every one who saw the "November" at the end of the trailer after Mummy (and got really excited), what about all the world release date that WB had just sent out a week or two ago, what about the Half Blood Prince Video game being released in November (are they going to move that back too, even while the new trailer for the game that was released yesterday said "November"), what about all us loyal Harry Potter fans who have been anxiously counting down the days until November 21st (and now we have to wait an extra 8 months)! Why this late WB, why not have made the decision earlier this year? We know it's all for the money but I mean seriously how much more would you make from a Summer Release. WHY WB, WHY?!

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David
August 14, 2008 at 20:05

Better success in the summer?!?! I guess WB forgot that Prisoner of Azkaban was a summer release and was the least successful of the franchise.

Other media reports quote a WB exec as saying the movie is 100% finished, he's seen it, and it's "wonderful". So that seems to me that the writers strike really had nothing to do with anything.

There's absolutely no reason to delay this film.

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