In the blink of an eye, one of the biggest movies of the upcoming holiday season, and of the year, has been moved back eight months. As announced on Aug. 14, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth film in the series, will now be released on July 17, 2009 rather than its original release date of Nov. 21.
Warner Brothers, the studio behind the Harry Potter franchise, released a statement from President Alan Horn on what caused the sudden shift. Horn mainly blamed aftershocks felt from the Writers’ Guild of America strike, and also said that a summer release date is seen as more commercially viable. Horn also mentioned that he would like this film to follow in the footsteps of the previous summer-released installment “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which is the second highest-grossing film in the series as well as the sixth highest-grossing film of all time.
On the plus side, the next film will be closer to the release dates of the two-part “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, set to be released in November 2010 and May 2011, respectively.
However, fan reaction has expressed some outrage at Warner Brothers’ handling of the situation.
“You know Hollywood is all about money, but this just kind of solidifies that it really is just about money. It’s just surprising because Warner Brothers is usually really good with the Harry Potter fans and keeping us happy. … They’re usually really nice about it. It’s just really frustrating that they don’t seem to care,” said Michelle Gonzalez, a third-year American literature and culture student.
Only time will tell if Warner Bros.’ strategic move will pay off next summer. Until then, fans will have to placate themselves with the newly-released trailer (with over 1 million views on YouTube already) that seemed to anticipate the original release date.
“It’s a bummer. I was really looking forward to it because I mean they released the little teaser trailer and I was watching it, and November wasn’t very far away, and I was used to the movies coming out at that time,” said Rachel Alonso, a third-year history student.
“I don’t know, I was just really looking forward to it. Now, they pushed it back to July. … I just don’t want to have to wait that long.”