According to marketwatch.com website, Warner Brothers has announced this afternoon that they are moving the release of “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” to July 17, 2009.

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!!

NICE!

(Hat Tip: AG, friend of DL)