"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" thread

[Raph's Girl]

In a bit of a "WTF?!" news it seems that Half Blood Prince's release date has been pushed to a later date...how much later?? Try July 2009...

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b238...rss_topstories

Not that the shake-up should give Hogwarts fans any reason to worry that this latest installment in the billion-dollar franchise isn't up to snuff—studio heads say this is purely an economic decision, based on the fact that Potter No. 6 is so darn magical.

"Our reasons for shifting Half-Blood Prince to summer are twofold," Warner Bros. president Alan Horn said Thursday. "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."

Horn also admitted that even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wasn't immune to the industry-wide discomfort wrought by the writers' strike.

"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."

Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group president Jeff Robinov also made a fine point: There will now be less of a wait between the sixth and seventh (and eighth) Potter films.The studio is eyeing respective summer releases in 2010 and 2011 for the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The sixth book (and film) in J.K. Rowling's hit series focuses mainly on Harry and Dumbledore's search for the remaining horcruxes where Lord Voldemort has stashed his soul.

As the recently released trailer shows, a lot of the action will take place in flashbacks, featuring Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, Ralph Fiennes' nephew, as a young Damien-channeling Tom Riddle, who, as we all know, grew up to be the baddest wizard on the block.

[cqb101]

I wouldn't say it's a "wtf" moment, it actually makes total sense.

[Warhorse]

No, it doesn't make sense. This was the movie I was waiting for 2008, and now it's not coming because WB wants to make this into a money game. This news gives me less faith in them handling the affairs of the TMNT on the big screen.

[The Stryker]

Originally Posted by Warhorse

No, it doesn't make sense. This was the movie I was waiting for 2008, and now it's not coming because WB wants to make this into a money game. This news gives me less faith in them handling the affairs of the TMNT on the big screen.

How dare the studio want to make money!

[Mecha Cow]

No, it doesn't make sense. This was the movie I was waiting for 2008, and now it's not coming because WB wants to make this into a money game. This news gives me less faith in them handling the affairs of the TMNT on the big screen.

So it doesn't make sense because you wanted to see the movie sooner, and the studio's business sense makes you lose faith in them. Alright then.

[Sewer Bull]

Because making movies based on popular books is a public service.

[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by Warhorse

No, it doesn't make sense. This was the movie I was waiting for 2008, and now it's not coming because WB wants to make this into a money game.

Well for one the movie industry is getting it's ass handed to it right now by video games and illegal downloading so the fact your getting any movies at all period at this point should be a blessing. Also studios have zero idea of what will make money anymore and WB is one of the studios that took too many leaps of faith and while they recently had some big successes they also have screwed themselves and they need to dig themselves out of a hole. While Dark Knight was dominating the box office WB's stock was still going down.

Wanna know why movie tickets are so expensive? There's your answer. No ones making any profit. They spend over one hundred million on a movie like says Hellboy 2 and it only pulls in 74 million. Which is sad because it's a great movie but not what the general public wanted I guess. So because Dark Knight made so much expect tons of studios to try and cash in on it with dark comic books movies. Once people are tired of that then something else will come along.

This choice to push it back I think comes along more as them wanting it to have a good opening weekend, which I'm sure it will, but draw in more people then fans of the series. They want to hook people who aren't fans yet as well and they won't do that when there's something else interesting coming out already or if that's not what's hot on the market at the time.

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by Warhorse

No, it doesn't make sense. This was the movie I was waiting for 2008, and now it's not coming because WB wants to make this into a money game. This news gives me less faith in them handling the affairs of the TMNT on the big screen.

Shut up until you know what you're talking about. Summer is the biggest time for movies, that's when they make the most money. November is already a hot month with "Quantum of Solace" opening up only 2 weeks before HP was suppose to, and Disney's "Bolt" opening the same day. The movie would have done horrible had it stayed in that spot.

[Evenstar227]

Originally Posted by cqb101

Shut up until you know what you're talking about.

No need to be nasty.

[cqb101]

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

If you're a fan of the book, save your time and money and skip this. I'm calling it right now, disappointment of the year.

Boring, anti-climactic, overly cheesy.

Spoiler:

The horcrux's don't even get mentioned until theres only about 30 minutes left in the film.

No funeral for Dumbledore? Seriously. Snape kills Dubledore, Harry tells Hermione and Ron he's not going back to school and then the credits roll.

Remus, one of my favorite characters is in it for maybe 5 minutes.

Snape non-chalantly tells Harry that he's the half-blood prince and than just walks away.

The movie pretty much just focuses on everyone's romantic relationships and seems to just gloss everything else over.

[Mecha Cow]

Eep, I was afraid of that.

[Mr. Snackpants]

Originally Posted by cqb101

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

If you're a fan of the book, save your time and money and skip this. I'm calling it right now, disappointment of the year.

Boring, anti-climactic, overly cheesy.

Spoiler:

The horcrux's don't even get mentioned until theres only about 30 minutes left in the film.

No funeral for Dumbledore? Seriously. Snape kills Dubledore, Harry tells Hermione and Ron he's not going back to school and then the credits roll.

Remus, one of my favorite characters is in it for maybe 5 minutes.

Snape non-chalantly tells Harry that he's the half-blood prince and than just walks away.

The movie pretty much just focuses on everyone's romantic relationships and seems to just gloss everything else over.

How could this be 'disappointment of the year'? None of these movies have been any good. What made you think this would be any different?

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by Mr. Snackpants

How could this be 'disappointment of the year'? None of these movies have been any good. What made you think this would be any different?

While none of them have been all that great, I feel like they've been getting progressively better, while this one may be the worst yet. It had a lot of potential, too, which is a shame. The direction was fine, cinematography was good, music and sound design was great, special effects looked awesome, but the script sucked and it was the worst adaptation yet.

[Mr. Snackpants]

Originally Posted by cqb101

While none of them have been all that great, I feel like they've been getting progressively better, while this one may be the worst yet. It had a lot of potential, too, which is a shame. The direction was fine, cinematography was good, music and sound design was great, special effects looked awesome, but the script sucked and it was the worst adaptation yet.

I see. I'm shocked reading the reviews on rotten tomatoes right now. 98%.

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by Mr. Snackpants

I see. I'm shocked reading the reviews on rotten tomatoes right now. 98%.

Yea, I'm shocked too. I'm surprised the reviews of the previous films were as good as they were, honestly.

[Roseangelo]

Originally Posted by cqb101

The movie pretty much just focuses on everyone's romantic relationships and seems to just gloss everything else over.

Crap, and I thought I hated Order of the Phoenix.

[ZariusTwo]

I wish they'd switch Directors and get someone more dynamic...hell, the reason they dont is because it's more expensive at this rate

I don't like Harry Potter, but the last two books roped even me in, and it's a shame the movie has to focus on it's bare-bones accomplishments and typical MTV-teen bopper simplistics

[plastroncafe]

Wow...and here I was thinking this was my favorite of the Potter movies to date.

This is the best straight up story-telling movie since "Prisoner."
Oh yeah, they cut a metric crap load of plot from the book, but all in all I think it was a better movie for it.

Really, I think by pushing back the release date for this movie was the best thing they could have done. It's been years since I've read "Half-Blood Prince" and I think that made all the difference in the world. I went in with only a vague remembrance of what <i>had</i> to happen in this movie and really enjoyed myself.

Yeah, if you're looking for a soul-less scene by scene retelling of book six a la Chris Columbus, don't waste your money.

If you're up for seeing this world fleshed out by an actual director, and seeing the characters you've grown to love through the books then I think it's more than worth the price of admission.

And I say this as someone who saw it for free and is paying to see it a second time on opening night.

[GK Punk]

Originally Posted by cqb101

Spoiler:

The horcrux's don't even get mentioned until theres only about 30 minutes left in the film.

No funeral for Dumbledore? Seriously. Snape kills Dubledore, Harry tells Hermione and Ron he's not going back to school and then the credits roll.

Remus, one of my favorite characters is in it for maybe 5 minutes.

Snape non-chalantly tells Harry that he's the half-blood prince and than just walks away.

Spoiler:

If I remember right, the Horcruxes really didn't get brought up until closer to the end of the book anyway though, right? And Snape kind of just says "I'm the half blood prince" in a very nonchalant way in the book too. That always bothered me that it kind of felt like a throw away plot line in the book

I'm kind of glad to hear they put focus on the relationship parts though. A Majority of the book was Harry saying "Hey, Draco is up to something" and everyone saying "You're imagining it" for 90% of the book, until he says "Hey, Draco AND Snape are up to something" then they all... Pretty much tell him he's imagining that too. I think for a movie they needed to have more depth to the character development.

Of course, I haven't seen the film version yet so it could end up not working well.

[cqb101]

Originally Posted by GK

Spoiler:

And Snape kind of just says "I'm the half blood prince" in a very nonchalant way in the book too. That always bothered me that it kind of felt like a throw away plot line in the book

Spoiler:

Now I haven't read the book since it first came out, but wasn't there atleast an explanation for why he's called the Half-Blood Prince?