Filed under: Movie News

‘Harry Potter 6′ Moves to July 2009

The muggles aren't going to like this!

Official word is in and Warner Bros. has moved Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from its November 21, 2008 release date to July 17, 2009.

Warner sudio chief Alan Horn said, “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.”

On the bright side it means it won’t be such a long wait until Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One on November 19, 2010.

Half-Blood Prince will now release the same day as Land of the Lost and one week following 2012.

So far the two Potter films released in summer earned $292,004,738 for Order of the Phoenix and Prisoner of Azkaban brought in $249,541,069. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone made $317,575,550, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets made $261,988,482 and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire made $290,013,036 all in November. The numbers are close enough that it appears it doesn’t matter when a Potter film is released, the numbers are still the same so perhaps it is a move for quality as opposed to greed, which I am sure many fans will assume.

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Post #1
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Damnation.

- flerk
( August 14th, 2008 | 4:41 pm )
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Post #2
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NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

- davidfrank
( August 14th, 2008 | 5:30 pm )
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Post #3
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Nuts! I’d expect it for Potter to match wits with James Bond! Aaaaaaaaarrrrrggghhhh!

- Dangerman_1973
( August 14th, 2008 | 5:47 pm )
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Post #4
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Look on the bright side, it will probably move to the 15th for a Wednesday release. :)

That’s two days earlier!

- bradbrevet
( August 14th, 2008 | 5:56 pm )
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Post #5
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Hehe. A small consolation.

- flerk
( August 14th, 2008 | 8:14 pm )
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Post #6
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Actually, it makes perfect sense and I’ll give you three words and a theme park to prove it: The Dark Knight and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. It’s no coincidence that Warner Bros. picked a release date exactly one year after TDK. Clearly they’re trying to position HBP the same way they positioned TDK: end of summer with no real competition for weeks. Add to that Universal Florida’s target of next summer to open its Harry Potter-themed park and there can be no questioning why it was done.

- malevolentmuse
( August 14th, 2008 | 9:54 pm )
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Post #7
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Don’t really care, I think Harry Potter movies are awful.

- adu
( August 14th, 2008 | 11:47 pm )
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