Alan Horn Addresses Fans Regarding Half Blood Prince Delay
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer of Warner Brothers has issued a statement as a response to fans who expressed dismay about the postponement of the Half Blood Prince movie to July 2009. The press release reads as follows:
Many of you have written to me to express your disappointment in our moving Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to Summer 2009.
Please be assured that we share your love for Harry Potter and would certainly never do anything to hurt any of the films. Over the past 10 years, we have nurtured and protected each film, and the integrity of the books upon which they are based, to the best of our ability.
The decision to move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was not taken lightly, and was never intended to upset our Harry Potter fans. We know you have built this series into what it is, and we thank you for your ongoing enthusiasm and support.
If I may offer a silver lining: there would have been a two-year gap between Half-Blood Prince and the much-anticipated first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which opens in November 2010.
So although we have to wait a little longer for Half-Blood Prince, the wait from that film until Deathly Hallows will be less than 18 months. I am sorry to have disappointed you now, but if you hold on a little longer, I believe it will be worth the wait.
Alan Horn
President, Chief Operating Officer
Warner Bros.
Fans continue to be dismayed by the actions of WB as well as the excuses given for the delay of the much anticipated movie. What are your thoughts?
Tags: Alan Horn, Half Blood Prince Delay, Half Blood Prince Movie, HBP movie, Warner Brothers
August 20th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Okay, I was finally accepting this news, and then they release crap like this. This is an attempt to merely placate the fans, and I feel he would have been better off saying nothing at all. Sure, there is the “silver lining” of the wait between HBP and DH1 being reduced from 2 years to around 15 months. However, Horn fails to comment on the fact that the wait between OOTP and HBP is now 2 years. There is a two year wait regardless. I believe they are telling the truth in that they would do nothing to hurt the films and didn’t mean to hurt the fans: The reason I believe this is that hurting either one would cut their profits. The only purpose this statement served was to further anger me.
After reading this statement, I am convinced that Horn and the powers that be at Warner Brothers believe that all Harry Potter fans are ignorant little children who they can count on to make a nice profit, but they don’t worry about otherwise. This statement feels insulting to me. Don’t pretend this move was in the best interest of the Harry Potter fans, because we know better. This move was quite simply in the best interest of the execs at WB. As soon as they can admit that, I will accept their decision.
August 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I agree, Alli. This whole situation reminds me a little of the unfortunate mess we’re having here in New York over sports seasons ticket prices; pretty much across the board, they’ve just been raised from marginally affordable to extortionary. Most of the management keeps yapping about how this is all for our own good. The only executives who have managed to hang on to any fan respect are the few who have come out and admitted that yes, the cold bottom line is that they are trying to raise revenues.
You’d think that honesty would be better PR than sweetly worded avoidance… but I guess not.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Yes honesty: people in power should try it more often; who knows, with a little practice, they might even get to like it?
August 20th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Alan Horn is a tool. He definitely poured lighter fluid on what was already an inferno!
August 20th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
In general, I am not overwhelmed with grief and anger about the movie date being pushed back–what with the trailer delay and non-specific dates on the movie posters, I was half expecting something like this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I’m not disappointed. Especially since they had already released the trailer and we were all gearing up for the approaching release date, I was extremely disappointed. But, I look at it this way. The mainstream element of the Harry Potter world is coming to an end (I’m NOT referring to fandom.). With the release of the last movie in a few years, the Harry Potter franchise will effectively wind down (again–not referring to fandom). After the last movie and whenever Jo decides to publish her encyclopedia, we will likely not have any more additions to the canon of our fandom of major consequence. For that reason, I am in absolutely no hurry for the remaining elements of “new anything” that we can add to our Potterverse. I want to continue to drag out the experience as long as possible.
Furthermore, we are a lucky fandom, and we need to remember that. LUCKY. We actually get our EIGHT movies made. We get the awesome, awesome, too-many-to-choose-from websites. We get our Hogwarts built FOR REAL. Other fandoms are fortunate if they get a hand-full of decent websites and maybe a movie if they’re lucky–checkout the Firefly fandom for evidence of this.
But mainly, I want to drag this out because no other Harry Potter fans in the future will ever, EVER be able to experience this like we all have–as it is happening. Because when it’s done and all has been released, published or sold, we’ll have no more. For that, I’m just not ready. So, I’ll wait. And I’ll do it happily because I would rather have it late than not at all.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
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August 21st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hollywood is about money and that’s all. It’s a money thing and there’s nothing we can do about it.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
That was a very interesting way to go about making the fans less mad, now we don’t have to wait as long for the next one in 2 years, brilliant.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 am
I agree completely with those of you who said that the biggest insult is the way that WB is treating their fans like ignorant little children. When I read this response it made me angrier than I had been about the delay in general. It is insulting to know that the people who are making the decisions about these movies treat the fans with such low regard and disdain. Honestly, it is no big surprise that WB cares about the bottom line only- they are a corporation and money is their primary focus. But to insult the fans with this “silver lining” crap, it is just too much.
Darcy- I agree with you- my world isn’t shattered that the movie isn’t coming out in November, but the situation surrounding it definitely frustrates me as a fan. Dude- what are you doing commenting on our blog- aren’t you getting married like now?
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:55 am
I have heard that the cause of this is because they made so much money with the release of Phoenix during the summer so this is why they are releasing it then. Lets think about this for a second Deathly Hallows is released shortly before this film drawing in so many more Harry Potter fans. Meaning people who had never read the seris before had just spent the entire summer reading the seris for the first time. There are no more books coming out so they well never be as big a moment as WB had then, not to say that this film wont be big but there well never be a summer like 2007 again for Harry Potter fans. So if WB is trying to recreate summer 2007 good luck.
Also I have heard the delay is because of the writers strike. Which doesn’t make sense because aren’t they finished filming already. I believe they would make the same amount of money what ever time of the year they released it. I mean come on this is Harry Potter not some unknown movie that no one knows about and does this mean that in fact they well end up moving the release date for Deathly Hallows too. In the words of ABBA “Money, Money, Money”. But yes I well wait too not that I have a choice but it sure would have made the winter a little less cold.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
This is all a load of bull…Who is to say they won’t decide to delay it as well!! Being that so many have been counting down to this and they put it off due to the Income from Dark Knight and not wanting to hurt it…Well look at what is to come next year…Transformers for 1. This is all a load of Crap and I wish the would just release it. I wish there were others we could complain too who could do something…It is not like Boycotting would work cuz no one else can supply you with what they have contracts on! Anyway here are my 2 cents worth!!!
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:25 am
It was quite simply an incredibly bad decision to have made. They should at least pretend to be making these movies for the fans, and not the money.
I was heartbroken when I visited your website to find this.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Someone should write to warner Brothers with all these comments :p. It’s wrong that they chose to make this move, it’s obvious it was only in view on increasing their already booming profits. Most people who want to see the film would go and see the film anyway whatever time of year it was released, so why they’ve said that “the young core Harry Potter fans” will be out of school so will go and see the film is completely ridiculous becasue the core fans would go and see it anyway. Also July is summer time, why sit in a cinema in the middle of summer? Surely less people would want to go then than in Novemeber, around the time of the other film releases for the series?
So what are they going to do, just because of the success of The Dark Knight will they release every expected Blockbuster in July?
Does this mean that they can’t begin filming the Deathly Hallows films until the release of the sixth film? Not being funny but the actors are getting older.
August 31st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Someone should write to warner Brothers with all these comments :p. It’s wrong that they chose to make this move, it’s obvious it was only in view on increasing their already booming profits. Most people who want to see the film would go and see the film anyway whatever time of year it was released, so why they’ve said that “the young core Harry Potter fans” will be out of school so will go and see the film is completely ridiculous becasue the core fans would go and see it anyway. Also July is summer time, why sit in a cinema in the middle of summer? Surely less people would want to go then than in Novemeber, around the time of the other film releases for the series?
So what are they going to do, just because of the success of The Dark Knight will they release every expected Blockbuster in July?
Does this mean that they can’t begin filming the Deathly Hallows films until the release of the sixth film? Not being funny but the actors are getting older.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I was shocked when I heard of the delay, disappoined when I heard the reason and outraged at the spin job Alan Horn tried to put to the story. As my protest, I will see Half-Blood Prince of course but I will NOT see any other WB produced movies until after the July 2009 release. WB decided what was best to do with their money and I have decided what I will do with mine.
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November 9th, 2008 at 10:56 am
You are all reading waaaay too much into this. We’re all disappointed, but you have to be realistic.
We have a collapsing economy! Everyone, even the movie industry, is affected by this serious problem. The movie industry is a business like any other, and Warner Brothers is doing Potter fans a favor by releasing it in the summer instead of this fall. If they don’t make enough money this upcoming year, then it WILL affect the production values of the last two films.
You have to imagine it like a small business. If they have a bad year or longer in earnings (caused overall by the writers’ strike, which severely cut into the releases for 2009-2010), then everyone at every level of the business loses out and grows discontent. If WB unwisely released the movie now instead of next summer, they would take a pretty big hit financially during a time when it’s just plain stupid to think that people are going to spend a lot of money on just a handful of films (compared to a normal year, again the lack caused by the strike) during an economic recession/potential depression.
I hope that so far makes sense to you people who say that “your intelligence is being insulted.”
Back to the small business example: So let’s say they released it now and set themselves up for production in third quarter of 2009 for the final two films. They would have LESS MONEY for production. With less money, they would have to scrimp on effects, cut down on the cast and crew, and cut the salaries of the cast and crew, just like in any other business. And what happens then? You end up with an unhappy cast and crew working on grueling schedule of shooting back-to-back movies with less money for production value.
End result? The last two movies would suffer from it. The fans would be unhappy.
So, again, to all you people who say that your intelligence is being insulted because you’re being treated like naive children: guess what! Maybe you’re being treated like naive children because you’re kind of complaining like naive children. You get what you deserve. And in the end, don’t you more than anything just want these last three movies to be as good as possible?
Aren’t you expecting too much of a company under financial strain by an economic recession peering at a depression? Do you think it’s wise to waste the decision makers’ time with complaints when in reality they’re do what is best for the consumer by creating the best possible end product?
I’m as much a fan as the rest of you, but you have to be realistic. You have to act like adults to be treated like adults.
Just one more example: Scott said that he’s going to boycott WB movies until HBP is released. One: that’s called a temper tantrum. Two: if Potter fans stop financially supporting the company that’s making the Potter movies, you end up with the same problem discussed in the above section. You end up with a company that will have a lot less money to spend on producing the last two movies and a lot of unhappy people making those movies for a group of petulant fans who may not deserve the support of the company. It’s a two way relationship.
Final word: If you want to be treated like mature people, you have to think and behave like mature people. This is business, and this is in the best interest of Harry Potter fans and movie fans in general.