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.”
I hope someone gets ahold of that movie and sends a wild fire of it over the internet.
WB should have their asses sued for being so greedy!
I don’t care about summer movies, or what makes better sence for them. We Potter fans have been wainting long enough and to fool us into thinking it will be released in November is BS.
HP is a holiday movie …. not some summer blockbuster money sheme
This is ridiculous, so we only have a movie released for the summer English and American markets.
I’m sure all HP fans would bare the cold to see HP in November rather than wait another seven months.
Maybe The Leaky Cauldron along with other HP site could get an online petition going to change WB decision. If they can change their minds in seven days then they can change it back.
okay i have vented and now i have gotten to thinking about this whoile release date push back thing as well as the backlash wb has to be seeing( i sent them several emails as well a strongly worded comment) and this most recent report to me smacks of trying to put somekind of spin on this to cover their asses while still going ahead with the push back in release date. I do not blame the makers of Twilight for moving up their release date as they are only taking advantage of WB greed to try to pullin some of the people who had made plans and special agrangments ( such as using vacation time to get the day off from work) to see HBP, They have nothing to to with WB ( as far as I know) so they hold no resposibility or blame for the date change. now for the change of release date , if it had been to re shoot some scenes or completely post production or some other legitimate and defendable reason id have no problem with it , as long as it was a reasonable amount of time to push it back and 8 months is not reasonable, as the could reshoot half the movie in that time. For the record I am Boycotting all WB releases til HBP and all WB dvd releases until HBP comes out on dvd as well as any other WB merchandise as for the books ill not boycott them unless it it quite clear WB has a hand in making them ( such as a book of pics from the movies) , they will get my money but not before i am ready to give it to them! I have signed the petitions even though i know they will not do any good but it helped me to vent the frudtration and anger we all felt, I have not forgiven WB for this and i never will. WB would not be stupid enough to cancel DH1 and 2 move them to dates they believe will bring them the most money yes but cancel them no as that would be like turning your cash cow into hamburger
as for the writer’s strike its there own fault it went on for so long, if they had settled withthe writers sooner they would not have had these gaps and that being said WB is most likely not the only studio to have this problem and if they are again its their fault for not having the foresight to have plenty of scripts ready to go as there was plenty of warning of the writer’s strike. Bottom line HBP is complete and i agree with others , it will get leaked to the net and bootleg copies willbe sold there is just too much of a chance for easy money to be made by a greedy wb employee for it not to happen, basicly WB need to purt armed guards onthe vault where the prints of HBP are stored and armed guard to keep the other armed guards honest and so forth
I think this really is a strictly coldhearted money decision. The stock is up right now and will stay up because of HBP. Shareholders will love it. They’d rather have two good years than one extra-good & one flop.
Fans and creatives working on the films be damned.
They really, really must think this is a good business decision, because it will cost a fortune to halt the juggernaut of the November launch.
This seems like one of those “too clever by half” business decisions that may turn around and bite them on the ass.
Since nutshell is such a fan of using this format to get points across…..
Fact: Prisoner of Azkaban was one of only two Harry Potter films to be released in summer. It had the lowest gross of all Harry Potter films. Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone was released in fall. It has the highest gross of all Harry Potter films to date.
Fact: WB is really bad at identifying the cause of a film’s success. They think that the season is the most important factor. As shown by the previous fact, they are wrong.
Fact: Because of the near irrelevance of the season when it comes to a hyped juggernaut like Harry Potter, If WB wanted to move their gross to next year they could have just pushed it to Jan 2009. Pushing it back only 2 months would have made it far less of a PR disaster for them and most probably would have made a negligible difference to total gross.
Fact: Saying that nobody will end up boycotting will certainly not inspire anyone to join the boycott. Saying that nobody will end up boycotting is a guess, and could end up being a poor guess.
Fact: Accepting that a boycott against WB can be successful, as boycotts have been in the past, will inspire many more fans to boycott.
Fact: Forgetting your disappointment and going to see HBP anyway is giving WB exactly what they want. It is showing them that you don’t mind at all if they knock release dates back at the last moment because you’ll accept it without question and end up going to see the movie in the cinema anyway.
Fact: The only way to make a corporation like WB feel that they made a mistake is to hit their pockets.
Fact: Core fans are overrepresented in the film gross, as they are much more likely to watch the films multiple times in the cinema. Therefore, a boycott from the core fans will have a larger effect than anticipated.
Fact: There are a LOT of Harry Potter fans worldwide. Depending on how you define “fan”, they may number in the millions.
Fact: Even a boycott from thousands of core fans will not be enough to make a significant reduction in the gross for HBP.
Fact: With effort and organisation, a boycott can be spread beyond the core fans to casual fans, friends, family and other moviegoers. The number of boycotters would snowball.
Jen, I hope you’re right and the film is leaked. That would be quite a spectacular backfire for WB. Sitting on a completed and massively anticipated for film 11 months is just plain stupid in my opinion.
I agree, the timing is pathetic! If they had to make this decision they should have done it before the release of the trailer, I think people would have been a bit more accommodating then. Not let all the fans start getting ready for Nov with an awesome trailer and then take it away from us a week or so later.
I won’t be boycotting the movie, no matter when it comes out. I’m going the first night. For those of you who are going to boycott, and I’m sure that some people will hold a grudge that long, I hope you realize that the only person you are hurting is you. WB is going to make money on the film whether you go or not. Those of us who chose to go when the film is in the theaters will have the opportunity to enjoy it on the big screen, and later on the DVD. So, by staying home, or seeing it later, you may feel that you’ve made a point, but all you really are doing is putting yourself in the position of spoilers about the movie, which are fairly hard to avoid.
As for the piracy issue, it doesn’t matter whether you steal a physical copy of the movie or not. If you think that taking something that doesn’t belong to you without paying for it isn’t theft, then you need to seriously look at your sense of ethics. Piracy IS stealing and whenever you do it, you show a selfish disregard and disrespect for everyone who worked on the film.
Hah, it seems that no matter how many times I write this the cynics ignore it.
WB will be hurt if ENOUGH people boycott. I have no illusions about just how many boycotters will be required to do that. Hundreds of thousands of people. That is what we are trying to arrange. And we can arrange it.
Listen, none of us truly want to miss this film in the cinema. We just want to make a stand on this issue even more, so much that we are willing to give up something we really want. That’s our position and I for one am not budging on it.
There are definitely going to be fans who end up boycotting, and I am going to do my best to make sure that none of us are doing it for nothing, by making sure that we make a united effort.
Just a question: WHY are so many people here determined to lecture me? I am not the only angry person in the HP fandom at the moment. Or the only one boycotting, signing petitions and sending Howlers. But I seem to be the one who is getting singled out. Why? You guys who feel the way I do about WB right now, am I coming off as unbalanced somehow? Maybe I don’t realize it. When I am mad I tend to say/write what I am feeling as I go along. But I cannot figure out what I have said that has invited all these personal therapists to single me out.
@Pat/Eeyor, you are not the only one to single me out here, but with all due respect, I NEVER said I was the only one who came here that had a less than perfect life, I don’t know where you got that. I was responding to a specific person (who also wanted to lecture me) about my specific situation, nothing to do with you or anyone else. In fact I did say that many of my HP friends are ALSO having a terrible year (NOT just me) and are just as upset as I am that we have lost the movie in November. I’m very sorry to hear about what you went through with your husband, and I hope he is OK now. I’m glad you handled it in such a healthy manner. Truly. But your experiences have nothing to do with mine and you don’t know me at all. The people who need my help and strength HAVE it. Daily. 24/7. As I said in my post, I come here for a release. I have been looking forward to this movie for a long time and I am angry and disappointed that I now have to wait until next summer. I have come here to express that. Somehow, several people now seem to think I need a lecture on how to handle my personal life AND that they are the ones to give it to me. Your post assumes that I do not already do those things (volunteering, etc.), which frankly I find a bit insulting and offensive, since I have and do. I don’t need you to tell me how to spend my time or what “meaningful activities” I could or should undertake that would be a better use of my time. I don’t think it is appropriate to list them in the middle of a rant, however. So, when I post all my anger at WB, I don’t follow it with: “But I am a completely mentally healthy individual who volunteers 20 hours a week at my local hospital and does the marathon every year for the Leukemia Society.” Or whatever. I am not “living with hatred and anger” as you put it. I am angry right NOW, which is not the same thing. I think I have a right to be angry, as so many of us are, and I have a right to post about it here without inviting every mental health guru to lecture me about it. It’s also not “healthy” to let stuff like this simmer, I have heard. I like to rant a bit with like-minded people when I am upset about something because THAT calms me down, makes me feel better and helps me get past it, eventually. Being lectured has the exact opposite effect.
There are people in my life who are afraid they may not make it to see HBP now, who were really looking forward to it. People who have already had to acknowledge they will not see DH. I am not just angry for me, I am angry for THEM. At the end of the day, yes, it is just a movie and in the grand scheme of things it is small potatoes. But sometimes that is all that people really have. I really wish people would think about that before they single out one angry person and decide, without knowing them or their situation, to start telling them all the reasons they should get over it, calm down, let go, deal and move on.
It is also wrong to break a promise, and that is what WB has done. They gave us their “word,” for all intents and purposes, that we would get the movie on November 21, 2008. People took them at their word and began looking forward to it. They made plans. They got excited. So, now they’re mad. I suggest that perhaps all the “calm down and deal with it” people “deal” with that. Maybe the HP boards are not the place for you all to be right now, when so many of your fellow HP fans are this angry, if it annoys you so much to hear about it. I’m not saying I want anyone to stay away. But these boards are for ALL HP fans and a lot of us are seriously pissed off at WB right now. We’re not done talking about it.
Now, this one made me laugh:
@Beth A: but, just a bone of contention with one of your gripes: they’re not increasing the lining of their pocket, they’re just moving money from one pocket to the other (from 2008 to 2009). Makes things more BALANCED (corporations love balance).
So noted! LOLOL
@MattJ, I am completely with you.
BTW for anyone who IS participating in the Howler Campaign (and I really don’t need another post from anyone saying how childish and pointless it is, thanks, I got it, it’s our choice to participate, we are not asking you to get involved): if you are having trouble finding red envelopes I got a pack of 25 for $5 at Party City in the party invitations section. My Staples didn’t have any, but any party store ought to have some.
I’m SO not going to watch the movie in theaters if they move it to the end of the friggin’ summer!!