Half-Blood Prince Pushed Back to July
Sunday August 17, 2008
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
© Warner Brothers
The irony is that the special effects-heavy film was apparently on schedule for its Nov. 21 release – in fact production is reportedly already complete. It's being moved to July 17 not because director David Yates needs more time to finish the movie, but because the studio needs a summer cash machine and expects the climactic Half-Blood Prince, the sixth film in the Harry Potter series, to deliver in spades.
"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," said Warners president Alan Horn. "We agreed the best strategy was to move Half-Blood Prince to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tentpole release for midsummer."
In other words, Half-Blood Prince is going to sit in a can for eight months just so that Warners won't have a weak summer. This despite the fact that its screenwriter, Steve Kloves, fretted to Entertainment Weekly that the Potter movies might start to tank without regular book releases to support them.
Even more oddly, this film that Warners expects to be a summer blockbuster is being advertised with a teaser trailer which, rather than whetting interest in the startling events that take place in the corresponding book, emphasizes the past mythology of Lord Voldemort -- making it seem like nothing at all happens in the movie besides Harry and Dumbledore watching old videos of Voldemort's truculent adolescence. While this is of vital interest to devoted fans like me, it doesn't strike me as the most likely way to reach out to casual filmgoers, and that's what you have to do with summer "tentpoles" -- get everyone in the door, not just the reliable diehards. Right?
The move will create a two-year gap between the fifth film, Order of the Phoenix, and its successor. And with the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, being split into two films to better cover the material, Harry's seven years at Hogwarts is stringing out into something more like a decade for us poor Potter-heads in the audience.
To my mind, Harry Potter films are December movies – perhaps because the Christmas scenes in the first few films really stuck in my head (Hagrid dragging a giant tree across the snow-covered grounds, etc.). It felt weird going to see Order of the Phoenix in July last year. I was certainly looking forward to seeing Half-Blood Prince this November. Apart from how unfair this is to fans, isn't it possible that creating a longer gap between films will create exactly the problem Kloves fears – attenuating interest in the franchise?
The usual cast of regulars is back for the sixth film: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint as Harry, Hermione, and Ron are joined once again by the immense cast of professors, students, families, and dark wizards accumulated since Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone debuted in 2001. New additions for this film include Oscar-winner Jim Broadbent as the new potions master, Prof. Horace Slughorn; Anna Shaffer as the amorous young Romilda Vane; Dave Legeno as the bloodthirsty werewolf Fenrir Greyback; and Michael Berendt, Frank Dillane, and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin playing Tom Riddle, the future Lord Voldemort, at various ages. (Ralph Fiennes, who played the adult Voldemort in the last two films, is not on the cast list for this film – one of the few actors in Britain who isn't – but he appears nonetheless in the teaser trailer linked below.)
Moving Half-Blood Prince to July created an opportunity for the holiday season seized by Twilight, the teen-love/vampire film based on the Stephenie Meyer novel, which moved its release date up from December to Potter's old date of Nov. 21.
- Image Gallery: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- View trailer
Comments
While this leaves me with a lot less to look forward to this holiday season, I grudgingly understand where WB is coming from. If we fans are to get the gazillion-dollar production quality, and the actors who now cost a gazillion dollars to cast, the studio must make gazillions of dollars.
Hard as it is for a movie geek like me to imagine someone *choosing* which film to go to this holiday/summer rather than simply going to all of them several times, the average filmgoer does choose, “Which film should I see this month?” So I can see WB wanting to spread out their gazillion dollar blockbusters.
On the upside, I understand the production for the 2 HP7 films won’t be affected, meaning less time gap between movies 6 and 7-1.
;-)
It is very disappointing to hear of Half Blood Prince’s release date moved to July. I believe the most aggravating of this situation, is that Warner Bros. Corp., a million dollar company, is doing this to fill capitalistic needs. Surely, Warner Bros. can with go a Summer blockbuster. This is definately a blow for Harry Potter fans!
I can’t believe WB is doing this, and especially for money. I was so looking forward to this holiday season and in particular this movie. I know Potter fans everywhere are upset and while we all we still go and see this movie it feels so weird seeing any Potter movie in the middle of the summer, it is a going back to school movie, a winter movie, not a middle of the sweltering heat type of movie. I don’t believe that the WB is hurting for money at all especially when you consider what this past summers blockbuster brought in I mean hello The Dark Knight is still in theaters here where I live so it must still be raking in some kind of dough. Shame on you WB.