Cool poster, sucks they have the date wrong.
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince has been pushed from its November 2008 release to July 17, 2009 effectively leaving a huge hole in the holiday movie season. For reason listed below, Warner Bros. has made this decision much to the dismay of fans everywhere. Admittedly I’m a little bummed by the news too. Anyways, here’s what WB suit, Alan Horn says:
“Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films–changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.”
This doesn’t seem to have any effect on the release of seventh films, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Here’s WB production president Jeff Robinov dropping science:
“The release date change does not alter the production schedule for this or future Harry Potter films. Post-production on ‘Half-Blood Prince’ was completed on time, and the studio’s release plans for the two-part ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ will not be affected by this change. We know Harry Potter fans are eagerly anticipating seeing the final chapters unfold onscreen. In fact, the good news for them is that the gap will now be shortened between ‘Half-Blood Prince’ and the first part of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.’”
There you have it.
