Half Blood Prince delayed

The movie of "Harry Potter And the Half Blood Prince" will not be released this Thanksgiving / Christmas.

Warner Bros. has delayed the release of the movie until July 17, 2009.

The reason for the delay seems to be two-fold:

(1) They've had better success with summer releases than winter releases; and

(2) "The writers' strike affected scripts for other films which changed the 'competitive landscape' for 2009."

According the AP story, Warner president and COO, Alan Horn, says, "The picture is completely, absolutely, 100 percent on schedule, on time. There were no delays. I've seen the movie. It is fabulous. We would have been perfectly able to have it out in November."

The two films of "Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows" are tentatively set for release in November 2010 and summer 2011.