WB has emailed me to let us know that the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie release has been pushed to July 17, 2009
“Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: 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. Additionally, 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. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer.”
All I can say is: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
UPDATE: There is now a petition online:
Change the Half-Blood Prince release date back to November 21, 2008