Just kidding… Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will not be delayed that much, but to the horror of Harry Potter fans around the world, it was announced today that the movie would indeed be shifted from its November 2008 release date to Summer 2009 - July 17, 2009 to be exact.
Warner Brothers said it moved the film to take full advantage of its box office capabilities by releasing it in the summer, though frankly I’ve always regarded the November releases to be more successful. I can’t back that up with statistics, but according to today’s release, the last Harry Potter movie - which, in my opinion, was by far the worst of the franchise - was the second highest grosser, and it was released in the summer.
Reading between the lines, though, this release date push probably signifies production delays, perhaps from the various strikes and de facto strikes that have ravaged Hollywood over the last year. I can’t imagine that Warner Brothers would simply sit on a finished Harry Potter movie for eight months, as not only would it be denying them hundreds of millions of dollars, but would also be asking for piracy.
As a Harry Potter fan, however, I am hugely disappointed that the movie has been pushed back to 2009, especially since Warner Brothers had just started to whet our appetites with teaser trailers and the like. Word is that the planned November 2010 release of Part One of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has not been affected by this delay.
Tags: half-blood prince, harry potter, movie, release date
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August 29th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
This is proof that money means everything. America and it’s box office can go get F****d.
World is failing hard. Would this happen at Hogwarts? NO.
Pwned.
August 30th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Hate to say this, but another site said that the release of the part 1 will be during the summer of 2010 and part 2 during the summer 2011. Not sure if that true or not. What irks me is them putting this 2 parts. HP fans would sit throught the entire thing even if it was 3 hours long. If people can sit through “Out of Africa”, and movie about living with aps, then they would definatly sit through a long HP movie.
August 30th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I’m actually happy they are doing it in two parts - I think even a three hour movie would struggle to include everything that happens in the books. The first couple of movies were 2.5 hours long, and those were based on some of the smaller books.
November 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
yo im disopointed of the delay
BRING OUT THE FILM FOR DAM SAKE
IF YOU DONY U R GAY
December 14th, 2008 at 1:42 am
I honestly think it’s the most rediculas idea i’ve heard they are scared Harry Potter wouldn’t do well in November cuz there is lots of compotition in the november season, but now they have pushed it to round about the same time when transformers 2 and spiderman 4 is coming out!Probleble the 2 worst competitors 2 have! what a great idea! put it next to the big movies!
June 17th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Really, they are just about ready to loose a lot of fans that grew up with the novel. They are reaching an age now where this is no longer interesting to them and the younger generation is not all hyped up on Harry Potter when there is… Transformers, Up and soo much more. Why would they want to watch 5 films the oldest a 9 year old film to catch up to this one. So the more they stretch it out for 2 more years, to get a better dollar value is really just gonna backfire.
June 17th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Hi Sierra,
Don’t worry - the movie is still coming out in a couple of weeks.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I’m glad someone else agrees with me that the fifth Harry Potter film was the worst so far.
The acting performance was as good as ever, which was let down, in my opinion, by such an awful script.
If all the films had been made as per the books to satisfy dvd sales, with an edited issue for the cinemas, they could have been as brilliant as the books.
Geof
June 29th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Glad you agree! It would have been neat to have a book-to-movie director’s cut; the problem there is that editing certain storylines out of a film after it’s been shot can often be tricky and end up looking cluttered. I’m pretty happy with how most of the films turned out, even if some storylines were dropped.
At least the screenwriter from the first four has returned for this one. Let’s see if it makes the difference.