Buy Or Don’t Buy

I’m going to admit this up front: I LOVE HARRY POTTER. I am currently about 200 pages into rereading the 7th book (for the THIRD TIME). I’m also currently reading the 2nd book in French. I beat an 8-year-old at Harry Potter Scene It, on multiple occasions. I. Love. Motherfucking. Harry Potter.

So feel free to imagine my reaction when I read this:

The release date for the sixth Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince,” was pushed back on Thursday to July 2009 from its original slot in November 2008, movie studio Warner Bros. said.

Yeah.  I freaked out a little bit.  But the voice in my head said, “Don’t you go all Bellatrix on them yet, Alli.  There’s probably a good reason for this.  Like special effects!  They must have some new badass FX that are going to take eight whole months to make!”

Actually, this is the reason:

Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc, said it had decided to make the change to bolster its release schedule for the lucrative summer moviegoing season - a period that can account for as much as 40 percent of Hollywood’s annual box office receipts.

I CALL BULLSHIT.  This is a Harry Potter movie we’re talking about.  The assloads-of-money part is written into the script. And no, maybe it won’t reach the outrageous levels of success that The Dark Knight surpassed with ease, but the studio would have to kill off Rupert Grint with a heroin overdose to achieve that in the first place.

So when it comes down to it, why should HP6 have to reach those levels anyway?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that the film industry is one utterly consumed and driven by the almighty green.  Yet so far the Harry Potter movies have been one pleasant surprise after another, somehow managing not to totally alienate the book fans who fill the seats.  If this delay were about quality, then all could be forgiven.  But when it’s a bald-faced attempt to further capitalize on the 8-year-olds who stay up way past their bedtimes to paint lightning bolts on their foreheads and see Harry at midnight, I think I speak for a lot of fans when I say: do not buy.