TodaySentinel Lunchtime Blog (Movies): Harry Potter switch up causes stir among fans
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For “Harry Potter” fans, the news last Thursday was completely unexpected and a little unwarranted.
Warner Bros. announced that the sixth installment “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” would be pushed back eight months to a July 17 opening from its original Nov. 21 release date.
While waiting two years instead of the usual 1 1/2 years between Harry Potter releases is probably not going to hurt the movie’s attendance, fans are trying to wrap their brains around the reasoning behind the move.
According to Warner Bros. President and COO Alan Horn, the decision had been under scrutiny by the company for a few weeks, though no one had apparently mentioned that to the editors at “Entertainment Weekly,” who work for the same parent company as Warner Bros., and who just happened to lead their Fall 2008 movie preview with “Harry Potter.”
What the company ended up deciding was to move the movie back because ... (drum roll, please) it would make more money in the summer.
It wasn’t over concern about the movie’s production or that there was any reason to think that it wouldn’t have been ready by November. It was all about the summer box office business.
“The Order of the Phoenix” opened up big in July 2007, grossing the second highest of all the “Harry Potter” films, second only to the first one, which notably opened in November. The only other “Harry Potter” flick to open in the summer was “Prisoner of Azkaban,” which opened in June 2004 and was the lowest grossing of all of the films (a still respectable $249 million domestically).
Also of note, while “Order of Phoenix” was the second highest grosser domestically, it also had the smallest opening weekend at the box office, and that’s not taking into account the difference in ticket prices as the years go on.
So while Warner Bros. claims that there was plenty of evidence supporting the move to next July, others are claiming that the move has more to do with the summer success of another Warner Bros. movie — “The Dark Knight.”
The sixth “Harry Potter” film’s new release date is exactly 52 weeks after the July release of “The Dark Knight.” There’s no doubt that the release date is more than a coincidence, but Warner Bros. still stands by its desire to release the film at a better date. Horn also mentioned that the new date would help Potter’s box office success because there aren’t a lot of other blockbuster films being released next summer due to the writer’s strike a while back.
Oh wait. Except for “Terminator Salvation” that is also released by Warner Bros. and opens two months before Potter. And then there’s the new remake of “Star Trek,” the anticipated spin-off “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and the ultra-successful “Transformers” sequel. I’m sure none of those count, though.
Overall, it seems like a rather large misstep to suddenly change the lineup three months before the movie is set to open. “The Order of the Phoenix” came out two years ago and its success was rather obvious at least 6 months after that, so to say that its success was the reason for a move that wasn’t decided upon until last week seems rather fishy.
Whatever the case, it is what it is, and the recent petition from fans to move it back is probably not going to change that, especially since “Twilight” has jumped from its December release to take its spot.
No word yet on the first of two movies for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which is scheduled for November 2010. I’m sure nothing will be official until that October.
