LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment in the blockbuster film franchise about boy wizard Harry, is moving from its planned Nov. 21 release to July 17, 2009, distributor Warner Bros. said Thursday.
The move was made to take advantage of an open weekend in Hollywood’s busy summer season, said Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and chief operating officer. The film had been on schedule, and the change was not due to any production snags, he said.
“The picture is completely, absolutely, 100 percent on schedule, on time. There were no delays,” Horn told The Associated Press. “I’ve seen the movie. It is fabulous. We would have been perfectly able to have it out in November.”
The switch will mean a two-year lag between the film adaptations of books five and six in J.K. Rowling’s fantasy series. But it will shorten fans’ wait between “Half-Blood Prince” and the final two installments, which are being shot simultaneously next year.
The fifth movie was released in 2007 and became the second-highest grossing in the franchise.
The July 17 release will be over the same weekend that Warner debuted this year’s blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” which had a record-breaking opening weekend and is on its way to $500 million domestically and the No. 2 spot on the all-time box-office charts behind “Titanic.”
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