Hey Everyone! Welcome to another edition of HPProgs.
In this week’s episode we reviewed Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince….sure took long enough for this movie to come out! We were joined by our friend and special guest Greg in Toronto who had some great insights into the movie. We talked about our overall impressions, the acting, the theme of the movie, the rating and many other very interesting subjects!
We also gushed about Azkatraz 2009, the Harry Potter conference we attended last week in San Francisco, CA. If you like what you heard and are interested in Infinitus 2010, check out the Infinitus website and get on their mailing list ASAP!
We also briefly discussed the move of the Harry Potter Exhibition to Boston, come October 25, 2009. The exhibition will be held at the Museum of Science in Boston.
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The Museum of Science and Industry is excited to announce that it will play host to the newest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at the Omnimax®, Chicago’s only five-story, domed theater. The Museum is the only large-format theater in Chicago to show the film on its world premiere date, and one of only three in the nation.
To kick off the film’s run at the Museum, there will be four midnight screenings of the film, beginning at 12:01 on Wednesday, July 15 (Tuesday night), with the final screening on 12:01 on Sunday, July 19 (Saturday night). The film will also be shown multiple times daily through Sunday, Sept. 27, to coincide with the run of Harry Potter™: The Exhibition.
For more information, visit the Museum’s Web site at www.msichicago.org or call (773) 684-1414
Warner Brothers has announced the US Premiere of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
It will take place on Thursday, July 9, 2009 at the Zigfeld Theatre in New York City. General information is as follows:
WHEN:Thursday, July 9, 2009
WHERE:
Ziegfeld Theatre
Crew Arrivals: 4:45 pm
141 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
Celebrity Arrivals: 6:00 pm
Screening: 7:00 pm
Celebrities in attendance will be: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Tom Felton, director David Yates and producers David Heyman and David Barron.
Warner Brothers has released the NEWEST Half Blood Prince trailer and it looks fantastic! It has some scenes we’ve seen before, as well as some new footage that is sure to leave you wanting more! We will get an imbedded youtube video in to show you the trailer asap, but in the mean time, go over to Mugglenet where they have the trailer in downloadable formats of all sizes.
Enjoy and make sure to let us know what you think of it!
We’ve started to have this conversation many times over the span of HPProgs. Do the Harry Potter books get ruined or spoiled because of the movies? Does it hurt our reading imagination to be able to visualize the books based on the film makers’ choices? Are there any characters who were either ruined for us or made popular BECAUSE of the movies (Snape, anyone?). Can someone be considered a true Potter fan if they have only seen the movies? Join us as we answer and discuss these questions and more in Episode #96 of HPProgs!!
Also, check out the links we mentioned on this week’s episode:
Candy Bar Lab : A blog exclusively about candy bars. They track down candy bars from around the world and write thoughtful, in-depth reviews with pictures.
collativelearning.com: An incredible film review website. Make sure to check it out, it is brilliant!!
Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2009 brings you a lot of happiness and prognostications!!!
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It was a shock to everyone when the newest international Teaser Trailer for Half Blood Prince leaked online this morning. Now that we have gotten over the initial shock of the unexpected gift, we have had sometime to look at and analyze the trailer. In this week’s episode Greg and I discussed our initial thoughts and impressions about this newest trailer. We don’t see eye to eye on everything- especially Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. However, there is a lot that we do agree on about this trailer. We look forward to hearing your impressions of both the trailer and our analysis of it.
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So, it’s been a week or so since the last episode of HPProgs; while you were waiting for the next show, and even larger wait was sprung upon you: Half Blood Prince, The Movie, was delayed from 2008 to 2000-and-freakin-9. Penny’s been covering developments on the HPProgs blog, and even managed to unearth one of the most ferverent reactions to the delay.
In this episode, we discuss the delay, assorted other goings-on, along with a tangential discussion on the recurring occurrences of eyes in Deathly Hallows (first spotted by John Granger – sorry I can’t find the exact link), and what this might (or mightn’t) mean.
Stay tuned for details on our Beedle the Bard contest, we will be putting out rules in the coming days.
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Digg This!
Many of you have asked us our opinions on the Half Blood Prince delay. We haven’t been able to emotionally pull ourselves together enough to address this issue but we have been scouring the net for some more famous reactions to the news. We were fortunate enough to find this footage in the archives of the German Museum. We think it sums up how many fans feel pretty well:
Please feel free to share and favorite this video.
*The above video was created by us. It should not be misconstrued as mocking the horrific tragedies that befell millions under Hitler’s regime.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting about the fan reaction to the news that the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Movie will be delayed by eight months. They interviewed WB President and Chief Operating Officer, David Horn about the situation and he elaborated on the press release from yesterday. He quashed rumors that the delay is due to production difficulties:
“There is no production delay or production consideration. . . . It feels like we have an opportunity in the summer,” Horn said.
He added that he had seen the film, which is in the final production stages, and that it would “absolutely have been ready” by November. He characterized the shift as a proactive business move, not a retreat. “The question we asked is, what is best for this movie.”
He then continued to explain the following:
Warner currently is riding high with “The Dark Knight,” the Batman film that also stars Bale. The grim super-hero movie has taken in $452 million in the U.S. since its July 18 release, making it the second-highest grossing film ever.
To some degree, that success motivated Warner to shift “Half-Blood Prince,” Horn said. The film will now hit theaters the same midsummer weekend that “Dark Knight” was released this year. Horn said the young, core Potter audience would be out of school and give the film a longer theatrical life.
Horn finished the interview by letting everyone know that “We would never do anything to hurt one of the movies or the series. We love our fans.” And money.
Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer of Warner Brothers said this about the move:
“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.”
We will get you more info as it comes in. This is big news that will sure to disappoint many Potter fans.
UPDATE: One good thing to come out of this: I received this email from the HPEF, the minds behind Harry Potter conventions such as Prophecy, Portus and the upcoming, Azkatraz 2009:
We are in touch with movie theaters within walking distance of the Parc55, the official Azkatraz hotel, and we will definitely be having HBP viewing parties from Friday on.
The IMAX near the hotel – it’s about 3 or 4 blocks away – will not know if they will have the film in IMAX or on regular-sized screens until February or March, but we have reserved an entire theater for the showing at 00:00:01 on July 17, 2009! We are also working to schedule at least one additional showing over the weekend, and perhaps one on Tuesday as well, depending on attendee interest.
Tickets will be available when our registration system goes live in the beginning of next month, and we will have more info about cosplaying, music, and other movie-showing events at Azkatraz shortly.
Be sure to keep checking our website (http://www.hp2009.org) for all the latest updates!!
Hopefully by now, you’ve seen the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. We sat down immediately after watching to record out thoughts. What do you think of the trailer? Does the voice of the woman in the orphanage belong to J.K. Rowling?
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