A bit more on the decision to change the release date of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” from November of this year to July 17th, 2009 is now online. The Canadian Press has a new article on the timing of the move and the large feature on the film in the current issue of Entertainment Weekly. The article cites a rep for WB saying the studio had “mulling the date change for three or four weeks,” but “it really didn’t kind of get on the front-burner until sometime within the last seven days,” Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. head of distribution, said Sunday.
Entertainment Weekly’s “deadline must have been earlier than the decision, than when we started to get serious about making the decision,” Fellman said. The online version of the feature which we told you about here and here contains an update about the release date change as well as the following as noted on the magazine’s Hollywood Insider blog: “EW and Warner Bros. share a parent company, but they clearly do not share, you know, important … information.”
The blog goes on to joke that the date change will leave Entertainment Weekly “readers in possession of a ‘Dewey Beats Truman’ collectible.” It also notes that British film magazine Empire features Harry Potter on its current cover, though that issue is not strictly a fall preview, touching on big 2009 releases, as well.”
petition spot has over 35000 diigital signatures to protest the delay and still going up. . but what Warner Brothers have to realize is, that is 35,000 computers, not individuals. With an average family of 4 that makes it 140,000. WB needs to know we are serious and will not stand this!!
In response to Ginevra’s kind request, I am reposting the address where you can see the Harry Potter character responses to this heinous act by WB: (Ginevra, after you copy and paste it, you have to remove the spaces between the letters in “ht tp” and “ht ml” in order for the URL to work)
ht tp://mrssplapthing.blogspot.com/2008/08/great-sucking-dragon-balls-is-this-work.ht ml
I feel so slighted. I know that the next movie will take mega bucks to make and they probably need it….but damn dude. I feel like I just had a tasty piece of pie waved in front of my nose and told that I can’t have it until next year. By that time…maybe I wont want the pie anymore.
Who am I kidding? The pie is the best pie on earth. I’ll deal with it until I can have it…but damn man….what the heck am I supposed to do until then? I’m having severe Potter withdrawls…then they go and do this! Why don’t they just punch me in the face instead? How many fans did they destroy with this? WB should be frickin ashamed of themselves.
Thanks, Marcheline! I had spotted the space between ht tp but not the space between ht ml. Very funny; I particularly liked the bit about the Quibbler!
From Joe: “Boycotts … do you really think you won’t see the movie?”
Yes. I will see it, but I won’t pay. Plus, my boyfriend will be happy that I’m not dragging him to the theatre with me. This is the 21st century. Be creative with that thinker of yours. You can figure out how to see it without paying. ;)
WB (as any production company) gets its money from the theatres themselves, who buy the film from WB. Your ticket money then goes to the theatre. So, this may only hurt the theatres. But some theatres might even hear all of this talk of boycotting and choose not to buy it from WB in order to minimize their risk. That decision, if made by theatres, would indeed hurt WB, but in turn, may hurt the future HP films.
I, personally, do no think that I will be paying to see HBP in theatres, but I don’t expect many other, if any at all, to stick to this idea.
Unrelated note: Does this Horn guy have any PR people? If so, he should make use of them. His statements have been absolutely ridiculous.
If it’s done to sheer commercialism a line has been drawn here. This proves it’s more about the BUSINESS than the SHOW these days. I think it’s really bad if they think that the twilight movie may gain more business if they show it in HBP’s Nov slot and believe that HBP fans will see it (because it has an HP actor in it) without affecting HBP revenue.
If any action is taken, it could be to boycott Twilight – that would scupper any extra revenue they thought they would get from this move and make it pure folly.
I also agree that the tone of HP is better suited to a Fall/Winter release as that is when the books are largely set. Who wants to go into a movie theatre in the Summer and see snow and overcast skies?!
I think the silence from JK is interesting – sometimes, silence can be more powerful than words…
Come on people, it’s just a film!!. And you’ll only moan about it when it does come out because it hasn’t got enough Ron/Hermione, they missed this out, they missed that out.
Harry Potter is over. I suppose WB has try and get as much cash as they can from flogging a dead horse, but we know what’s gonna happen. I have no interest in the last two, thought the ending was rubbish, Harry should have died.
As for blaming Dan, well I suppose you’ve got the blame someone.
If warner brothers is to be taught a leason, people need to NOT see any warner brothers movie. Just a few that come to mind: Star Wars, The Clone Wars & Journey To The Center of The Earth. Also people may want to start complaining to any local WB television stations. We can also write to companies that run their ads on those stations and share our displeasure of being ripped off! But it will take all of us folks.
WB are pi$$ing me off. Lets spread the word and forward this on to everyone so that we can truly be heard by WB!!!
Please sign a pledge to boycott the opening weekend and send a message to WB that they will actually listen to. Forward this on to everyone you can. That way we can still see the movie when it does come out, but on our terms, sending WB a strong message, and hurting their big opening weekend:
“If it’s true that WB need the revenue for 2009 instead of 2008 why does it need to be July? A January release I could almost accept. Even they’re going by fiscal year, it starts in April. Why July? They aren’t fooling anyone when they say a summer release will bring in more people, it’s Harry Potter for god’s sake it’s not like no-one’s heard of it!”
They won’t release it in January because you don’t release blockbusters in January. Blockbusters get released May-July or November-December, they don’t get released in January.
They are moving this film to July because they believe it can bring in huge box office like both OOTP and TDK have done in that slot in the last two years.
They are moving it to balance their 2009 books, but they aren’t going to drop it in any old month, they are going to put it on at a time in 2009 where they will get lots of teenagers on holidays going to see it on weekdays. Now this would either by July 2009 or November 2009 -would you rather wait until November next year? No, thought not. So July 2009 fits with their fiscal requirements without ticking off fans even more by delaying it until November next year.
As much as I think it sucks that we won’t get the film in December (yes, I live in Australia so we were getting it late anyway), I don’t understand why people feel the need to come up with conspiracy theories about this, it’s a simple business decision – one that sucks, but it is very easy to work out why the are doing it for their business purposes.
This is one of the stupidest things iv ever heard of. All HP fans have been waiting for this movie to come out since the book came out! This is so unfair! They get our hopes up and then decide to squash them like bugs! This is crap and WB knows it. The sad thing is they know that this wont really wont hurt their profits b/c there is not a single true HP fan that wont go see this to make a point(I mean in a petition sort of way)! This really sucks! But ill tell u now if this afects the releas dates of the last 2 movies theres gonna be hell to pay!!!!!!!!!
Personally I am outraged. I saw the last Harry Potter movie three times - one time in an IMAX. Well, I will see this movie - ONCE. Then I’ll wait for the CD to come out. If Warner Brothers is that anxious to manipulate their customers they have, I believe, under-estimated the non-tangible effects on the bottom line.
They will get one ticket from me this time, not three, and that means that for me, their profits will plummet by 67% because of this decision.
I am a true HP fan, but I can live with seeing the movie once before it comes out on CD. Screw them.
WHAT! THEY DECIDED WITHIN 7 DAYS! AND FOR THEIR ULTRA STUPID,RIDICULOUS IDEA OF CHANGING THE DATES,WE SUFFER!!! A 7 DAY DECISION WILL MAKE THE HP FANS SUFFER FOR 8 WHOLE MONTHS!!! ANYWAY IS THE MOVIE READY OR NOT… I DOUBT IT !!! BOYCOTT …BOYCOTT…BOYCOTT
Harry, Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville changed into their dress robes up in their dormitory, all of them looking very self-conscious, but none as much as Ron, who surveyed himself in the long mirror in the corner with an appalled look on his face. There wa
petition spot has over 35000 diigital signatures to protest the delay and still going up. . but what Warner Brothers have to realize is, that is 35,000 computers, not individuals. With an average family of 4 that makes it 140,000. WB needs to know we are serious and will not stand this!!