Wow, I just talked myself into a theory! STOP READING RIGHT NOW IF YOU’RE GOING TO ACCUSE ME OF BEING DELUSIONAL, I probably am.I’m seriously starting to lose my mind, please know that what I’m about to say is so uncharacteristic of me, I was never a Harry/Hermione shipper, I never supported wild theories (Snape is a vampire, anyone?),so this is new to me please take it easy on me.here goes my sanity…......... What if it WASN”T about Twilight at all? You know all those stupid rumors saying that WB moved the date so that HBP and Twilight won’t be showing at the same time in order to not harm both ticket sales? what if it wasn’t Twilight they were worried about? I mean EVERYONE knows that Twilight can’t affect Harry Potter, there’s NO WAY WB could possibly be scared of Summit Entertainment’s “Twilight”, that’s pretty much obvious, right? what if they whole putting-Twilight-on-Nov.21st move was on purpose, but for a completely different reason? what if they WANTED us to think that they were afraid of Twilight so that we won’t realize that they’re afraid of something else? think about it this way, if they made us think that they did this because they were afraid of Twilight, then when HBP comes and completely beats Twilight and throws it off the charts-or box office or whatever- they can easily and truthfully say that they were never afraid of Twilight in the first place and that they had no doubt about HBP’s success, then we would believe them and accept their lame excuses for the 8 month delay. By now you’re asking “what are they afraid of then?’, I’ll answer that in a minute. you see the briliance of their plan? they can make Summit Entertainment an offer they can’t refuse, delaying HBP to summer and giving Twilight its releaese date instead. Now WB may not be scared of Twilight, but Summit has every reason to be afraid of showing their movie at the same time as HBP, so imagine how grateful they’d be of a chance to have fall all to themselves with Harry Potter so far away, and they’ll be thrilled to treat their fans to a three week early release too! It’s a win win situation (corporately speaking of course)! Now, what is REALLY freaking WB out? That’s simple, what other movie series has a movie coming out this fall that has a fan base as big as Potter’s (yes AS BIG AS POTTER’S), one that’s produced by a company EVEN BIGGER THAN WB? one that even MuggleCast’s Andrew already has tickets to? High School Musical 3, that’s what! I know that some people are saying “what? no way, HSM is so lame! it’s soo kiddy and disneyy and so on” but face it, HSM3 is a VERY big movie and it’s bound to get a LOT of money and WB are soo concerned about money they might think that way! Disney is not something they can easily go against and win, they could’ve done it with Caspian, but not with HSM, it’s just too risky for them to consider, they can’t risk losing one dime, but they can risk breaking our hearts- as I said earlier, they know we’ll give them our money anyway, for Harry’s sake. so, I’m insane right? I know

inVisigoth , I only said I wasn’t going to boycutt Harry Potter, I’m still boycutting other WB stuff . I started that post by saying “I’m confused”, I still am, but thnx anyway for trying to make it all clearer.

BOYCOTT WARNER BROTHERS!!!!!!!!! IF YOU CARE ABOUT HARRY POTTER, DO IT!!!!!!

Princess Potter, you’re not insane, but to be truthful, Disney has had flops in the past (mostly through their Touchstone Pictures/Hollywood Pictures arm). There have been some notorious Disney-led flops like “Newsies” and 2004’s “Home on the Range”. But I doubt that (or “Twilight”) has anything to do with Warners’ decision to move HBP to July 2009.

Guys, you are perfectly justified in doing boycotts and such, but to brutally honest… this is NOT the Second Coming (or other religious equivalents) or a serious social/economic issue that needs to be addressed. It’s a movie… studios move completed films around the schedule all the time. I know some casual fans who aren’t that angry with the change, but people are people. Some take it easily, some are frustrated, and a LOT of them are angry.

Just because 97% of fans are angry with the delay, doesn’t mean WB will move it back because of their non-existing kindness in their hearts. They’ll know there’ll be a sizeable turnout regardless whether the film opens in November 2008 or July 2009.

Thanks Mathew, it’s good to know that someone doesn’t think I’m insane. And you’re right, to a lot of people (including my own family), it’s not a big deal at all. I’m just too mad about waiting that much longer

Warner Bros could care less about the fans-it all comes down to money-I for one am boycotting the movie just for the attitude that WB has-you don’t announce when a movie is going to open-even while the writers strike is going on if you have doubts about your other movies then like magic The Dark Knight starts setting records “Oh let’s move it to the same weekend next year so we can make a killing. As if they wouldn’t rake in the $ regardless. It just smacks of hypocrisy “We love out fans” If they would never have said when they would open the movie then said okay July-fine. But You don’t release the trailer then postpone the movie 8 months and give a halfA** reason. BOYCOTT hit WB where it hurts!!!!!!!

FYI:

New Line Cinema is part of Warner Brothers Cinema

Reprise Records is part of Warner Brothers Music.

I’ll be looking for more affiliates. And by the way, if a couple of hundred fans were to show up at the WB studio. Media Coverage would be almost guaranteed, and at worst there’d be media coverage of the fan’s outrage, at best we could make WB look like the Grinch who stole HP, and maybe even walk away with HP promotional goodies. I’m serious.

Matthew, I’m not counting on 97% of the angry fans to boycott. I’m counting on, or attempting to get half the angry fans, and about 10 or more of their family and friends each to boycott, more if we can manage it. I’m not delusional, I know that we won’t make much of a dent in HBP’s gross if we can’t extend the boycott well beyond the core fans, because about two-thirds of them are likely to forget their upset and flood back to HBP in July like sheep, exactly as WB is expecting them to.

And I do think this is an important social issue. I believe that capitalism should be balanced with empathy and a good sense of social justice. WB already failed to do that with the writer’s strike. It’s not just the fact they’ve pushed it back, it’s the timing, the reasoning, and not taking the hype into consideration. This is not just any film, not one of those new films that you only hear about 1 or 2 months before it is released. It’s a film with loads of hype and expectation, and it’s just plain cruel to push back a release date by 8 months when it’s been in place for a year and the fans have been building up hype for it. The would have been the same outrage if The Dark Knight had been pushed back a month or two before it’s premiere.

We know that WB is doing what they think is right for them by pushing the film back 8 months, and we are doing what we think is right for ourselves and the other HP moviegoers by boycotting. That is all there is to it.

There is a petition with 31553 at the time of this comment. That’s a good indication of that 97% figure. I should add that core fans are somewhat over-represented in the gross because they are far more likely than anyone else to watch multiple times. I’ve watched each film except PS/SS 4 to 8 times in the cinema and many fans have watched more.

Princess Potter, no matter how much damage we do to HBP there is next to no chance that Twilight will make more money. It would take an absolute miracle for Twlight to gross that much, nobody is expecting it to. It would take a far larger miracle even than the one required to seriously damage WB’s profits on Half Blood Prince. Of course miracles aren’t just something that just happen, they’re something that people make happen. But pigs will fly before Twlight makes more money than HBP, truly. I suggest you start working on making pigs fly.

oh this is wonderfully ridiculous! lets see if all us muggles can send a pack of hungarian hornbacks to bite off mr. horn’s head!!!!

what bugs me is that twilight (f it) is taking its place. whats that supppoesd to mean?!

...

I’m just going to watch it without paying for it. I’m not going to bother seeing it at midnight like I was planning with 20-30 friends. No, I don’t want to add to the opening weekend box-office grosses, plus it’ll be easier to sneak in and watch it without paying after that first weekend. I urge others to simply forego the midnight madness. Don’t get sucked into the hype and refuse to reward this decision by lining up in costume all day, maintain CONSTANT VIGILANCE against the Hollywood machine’s manipulation of consumers. They love the cash in a fan’s wallet, not the fans themselves. Now there’s several months to promote merchandise to exploit the fervor for the film, all in the name of pacifying angry fans. Don’t you love executives?

Also, if you are really interested in disintegrating interest in the film, be more intellectual discerning when you publish your responses to the released film in addition to refusing to see it again, or at least paying to see it again. If you can influence bad buzz on opening weekend, it will spread like india ink across the media and negatively influence the repeat and casual moviegoer factor of its box-office grosses, causing a diminished over-all take than they hoped for. That will definitely teach them not to treat fans like programmable lemmings.

It’s not going to be that good anyways. Isn’t this the movie where the screenwriter and director tried to insert that drivel, that hopelessly schmaltzy bit of diabetes-inducing treacle, otherwise known as that ridiculous monologue created in bald antithesis to canon characterization of Dumbledore, in which he reminisces about his lady love from years past? Shows they really understand these books doesn’t it?

OH Sure they do…NOT NOT NOT, WHY are they doing this to us the bastards!!!?? WHY?? I’m so angry I’m close to saying that if they’re moving it for almost a whole YEAR thay can just whatch it themselvesb GOSH GHAAAAA!!!

How’s this for a compromise?

WB needs $$ for next year because they have no movies coming out due to writers strike.

Fine – release the movie on Jan 1, with a big New Years Eve Hype – right at the beginning of their new fiscal year.

Fans will flock to this film because of its content…this isn’t some new flick coming out that needs a holiday season to support it. In fact, it would blow away most of the other useless crapola released in January.

Yes, people, it is perfectly normal for a business to want to optimize their money-making. This is just simply not what’s going on here.

It seems very clear to me now that the real problem here is that they have yet to be truthful with us about the reasoning behind this decision. It’s becoming ever clearer that that’s the case.

“I’ve seen the movie. It is fabulous. We would have been perfectly able to have it out in November.” Excuse me? Either that is a lie, or the reasons you gave for the push-back were lies. Or, perhaps, you simply are incapable of putting your thoughts into an intelligible sentence, and therefore, we’ve misunderstood you.

If you would (note: not “could”) have been “perfectly able” to go ahead with the original release date, why did you move it? Shall I break it down for you? Go to dictionary . com, and search for “perfectly” and then “able”. The above statement made by Mr. Horn implies that they could have kept the original release date without causing any damage to their monetary gain.

So, which is it, Mr. Horn? What’s really going on here? Don’t underestimate our ability to see through your statements. . . or at least take another English course.