The next Potter film has been delayed from November until next July in a surprise move by Warner Bros. this evening - despite the release of the first trailer just a week or so ago. Some of you are fans of Harry Potter. Some of you aren't. Regardless, here is an astounding example of a very greedy movie studio.
In it's press release, Warner Bros. explains its reasons for the eight month delay:
“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.”
Well, at least they're not hiding the fact it's been done purely to make them more money. The sad thing is WB knows that it will piss fans off no end by doing this, but come next July knows that the same fans will still queue up in line to see it.