The more and more I think about it the more and more the decision on the part of Warner Bros. to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from its scheduled November 21, 2008 release slot to July 17, 2009 is just plain wrong. It’s a slap in the face to the fans that made the franchise what it is and it is a pure example that the audience matters very little when it comes to matters of business dealings, not only in Hollywood but in all facets of corporate greed.
Today Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn issued a statement regarding the move and as you can imagine it does very little in terms of offering any kind of acceptable reasoning as to why the move occurred.
Many of you have written to me to express your disappointment in our moving “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” to Summer 2009.
Please be assured that we share your love for Harry Potter and would certainly never do anything to hurt any of the films. Over the past 10 years, we have nurtured and protected each film, and the integrity of the books upon which they are based, to the best of our ability.
The decision to move “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was not taken lightly, and was never intended to upset our Harry Potter fans. We know you have built this series into what it is, and we thank you for your ongoing enthusiasm and support.
If I may offer a silver lining: there would have been a two-year gap between “Half-Blood Prince” and the much-anticipated first part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which opens in November 2010.
So although we have to wait a little longer for “Half-Blood Prince,” the wait from that film until “Deathly Hallows” will be less than 18 months. I am sorry to have disappointed you now, but if you hold on a little longer, I believe it will be worth the wait.
Alan Horn President, Chief Operating Officer Warner Bros.
The statement is more of a slap in the face saying, “You are going to see it no matter when we release it and this worked better for us so deal with it.” It’s not something any fan would take lightly, but what choice do they really have?
Boycotting the film only hurts themselves because it is highly unlikely millions of people across the world are going to follow suit when Warner Bros. releases Half-Blood Prince day-and-date across the globe. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to see it?
It isn’t as if the Harry Potter franchise is a relatively new phenomenon such as Twilight, which depends largely on its core fanbase and no one else in order to create buzz and enthusiasm around the feature. If Summit had decided to delay Twilight by 11 months the result would have been devastating. Sure, there is a lot of Internet hype at the moment, but that can only last so long, and sooner or later the Snakes on a Plane syndrome kicks in and before you know it no one cares anymore.
Not so with Harry Potter and Warner Bros. knows it. This is the sixth film in a franchise of seven stories. It’s not a new phenomenon, it’s an established franchise that has earned $1,411,122,875 at the domestic box-office so far with an average of $282,224,575 per film. After the success of The Dark Knight and a 2009 slate of films headlined by Watchmen, which still has to grow its audience, and Terminator Salvation, which has to hope its audience returns, it is certainly going to help to tack on an additional $282 million or more to the bottom line, especially considering that money is a pretty much a sure thing.
Perhaps fans wouldn’t have been so mad had Warner Bros. not waited to make the announcement only 17 days after releasing the first teaser trailer and only four months prior to the film’s release. Sure, the majority of audiences don’t really care, but they aren’t the ones WB should care about when it comes to this. Warner Bros. has turned their back on legions of fans and basically said, “We don’t care about you because we already have your money.” Not exactly the best way to go about business, but whoever said morals and ethics had any place in Hollywood?
Many of us may joke about the lengths hardcore fans will go to in order to support their favorite fictional characters, but we all have to admit that intentionally spitting in their face because you can is not acceptable no matter how you look at it. Warner Bros. should be ashamed for the way they have treated this debacle, but unfortunately I can only assume they feel nothing.
Box-office numbers provided by Box-Office Mojo.
