Don't expect any boy wizards to make box office magic this year. Though a teaser trailer for it just came out a few weeks ago, the sixth film in the series, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," will non be coming out in November after all. Warner Bros. announced Thursday (August 14) that it's pushing back the release date of the film to July 17, 2009.
The studio said that it had reconsidered the timing based on the overall securities industry as intimately as the recent writers' strike.
"Our reasons for shifting 'Half-Blood Prince' to summer are double," Warner Bros. President and Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said in a statement. "We know the summer time of year is an ideal window for a family tent-pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter moving picture [released July 11, 2007], which is the second-highest-grossing film in the franchise, behind only the low installment."
Horn added that "like every other studio," Warner Bros. was still "notion the repercussions of the writers' strike," which had affected scripts for other films, and changed "the competitive landscape for 2009." Because of this, the studio felt next summer was a "new window of opportunity" for the franchise. The film's manufacturer, David Heyman, concurred, locution that this would allow them to "reach the widest possible audience."
Entertainment Weekly had already put Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, on the cover of this week's fall movies preview matter, on newsstands Friday. However, the studio was prompt to dispel any speculation that the film was behind docket or that the release-date change would affect anything in the film itself.
"The release-date change does not alter the production schedule for this or succeeding Harry Potter films," Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group President Jeff Robinov aforementioned in a statement. "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."
"I am super proud of this latest film and of the work of [director] David Yates and our uncomparable cast," Heyman said in a statement. "I believe we have developed and pushed the series further still. We are all looking onward to sharing it with Harry Potter fans about the earthly concern, even if we make to wait just a bit longer."
The delay is actually "salutary news" for fans, Robinov said, since it too means "the gap will now be shortened" betwixt the release of "Half-Blood Prince" and the first-class honours degree installment of "Deathly Hallows."
"Even as we put finishing touches on this latest film," Yates said in a statement, "we ar already kickoff preparations on the last two films ... and I am aroused to bring this noteworthy series to the exciting and moving conclusion its loyal fans deserve."
Because of the change in release date, the studio will likely cut a new trailer as well, though a sack date for that remains undetermined. Filming for the first piece of "Deathly Hallows" starts in February.
Check out everything we've got on "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."
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