Warner Brothers announced today that it is postponing the release Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for another year. Here it is August 2008 and the film will not be released until July 2009. It was slated to open in three months. Just who exactly made this decision? Is it this kind of decision-making that is causing the stocks for TimeWarner to tank?
The film is all done and ready to go - but Warner Brothers thinks it can squeeze even more money out of the fans. Perhaps they should think again.
The news has hit the papers and it's not going well, not well at all. Fans are up in arms over the news - some thinking it's an early (or late) April Fools Joke. But no - while Time Warner stock continues to plummet, bad strategic thinking continues to abound - including that whole business about suing a fan for his book and threatening all the other fans that if that lawsuit doesn't go their way it will be No More Mr. Nice Guy. It does make one wonder what is going on inside corporate headquarters.
And it shows that Warner Brothers has no idea what can happen when fans turn on a studio. Just ask Desilu Studeio what happened when they initially cancelled Star Trek. Oh, that's right. There is no more Desilu.
The outrage that is pouring out over the internet against the studio is unprecedented. What is going wrong at the studio? Who made this decision and are they still employed? And is there no room for reprieve?
Or is it that the new film is really bad? If it's so good - why have it sit on a shelf for a year?
