Just think, during the housing boom, when people were being sold all those mortgages they couldn’t afford, people had all kinds of “good attitude”!

And honestly, they pushed it back because despite all the fuss and trash talk they know they are STILL going to make a metric pantload of cash on this. The fans are not fans of WB, they are fans of Harry Potter and they will STILL go to this movie.

Boycotts are only effective if everyone does it. And no boycott convinces everyone to not go.

A major German bank had a $450 million investment deal with Paramount, which they just pulled out of, as well as closing down their entire film financing department.

Major studios are no doubt anticipating further recession and that means fewer films being invested in now to anticipate fewer people having the supplemental income to spend their money at the movies. That, to me, makes more sense than blaming the writers’ strike for a lack of scripted material to make films with.

It does make financial sense for WB to move a moneymaker in order to balance the books for the next year. Having said that, however, I must confess my astonishment over the amazingly unprofessional way that the new release date was announced. It’s as if this decision was made at the highest levels of WB, and then everybody forgot how to run a business.

Building anticipation for a film to an extremely devoted fan base and then pulling the rug out from under them is nothing short of absolute public relations STUPIDITY. As soon as the decision for the new release date was made, someone should have been on the phone to Entertainment Weekly to pull the six-page spread, the trailer should never have gone out, and publicity personnel should have been marshalled to anticipate fan reaction and plan a strategy to help ease the disappointment and start setting up anticipation for the summer release. Either way he tries to slice it, Alan Horn has a lot of esplainin’ to do. I mean, come on, the official website for the movie still had the old release date listed on it seven days after the announcement made the press. How retarded do you have to be to let that happen?

My heart goes out especially to very young fans and their parents, who were planning to make HBP part of their Thanksgiving holiday. It’s heartbreaking to read posts by parents who say their kids are crying in their beds because they won’t get to see Harry this holiday season. That’s the kind of fan base you have for HP, Warner Bros., and if you don’t know that by now–after five friggin’ films already–what the hell are you doing in this business? I also can’t help feeling sorry for the filmmakers–they worked hard and produced the film on time and now they have to wonder about the bad feeling that’s been created around the film that was obviously not their fault. Hopefully, that will be remembered if HBP is not the financial success, when released, that the studio hopes for.

As for all truly disgruntled fans, if you are talking about boycott, I hope you are aware of the resolve and strategy that boycott involves. Not only do you have to stay away and not buy WB media products and persuade others to do so, you have to create press around your boycott, so that all the studios take notice of the impact. Good luck.

Online petitions are the easiest things to manipulate. I guarantee that WB will not change their mind on this move no matter how many virtual signatures you get.

Sorry.