EDITORIALS

Producer David Heyman Responds to Half-Blood Prince Delay

by Alex Billington
October 30, 2008
Source: ComingSoon

I'm trying not to stoke the fire that is the angry mob of Harry Potter fans, but I thought this response from producer David Heyman on the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince delay was too good to pass up today. ComingSoon recently talked with Heyman and got an extended response to the delay, which as everyone know caused quite an outrage back in August. The new international trailer that hit the web a few days ago didn't really help either, given it's yet another painful reminder that we have to wait eight more months when we could be seeing it in November. Alas, Heyman tries to dwell on the bright side of things near the end, but we'll get to that later. "Kids were definitely upset and I'm really sympathetic to that."

"I would love the film to come out in November; we would have been ready, but the fact is partly because of the writers strike and for whatever reason, Warners didn't have any movies next summer. They had Batman this year which was bigger than they ever thought it would be, so they came to me, and they said, 'David, we want to move it.' Warners has been really good to us. They've given us lots of money and lots of independence. It defies belief how much independence we have on these films. They give us the money, they read a draft of the script. I choose the director, we make the film, they come and visit. We show them a cut of the film, they say they like it, they give us some notes, we make the changes that we want to make. We test screen it once and show it to them, and then the movie is released. They've been so supportive that one has to support... they needed it. It's a film business."

For those who are trying to focus on the positive, Heyman confirms that the film's already done. "We're just mixing and there's a slight tweak we're going to do but actually, if the film was coming out tomorrow, we'd have done it but we have the time." Due to security issues and worries over piracy, however, they're keeping the film separated and won't put it together until next year when they're ready to start making prints. Fans who are anxious for every bit of Harry Potter they can get should rest assured that this means we'll see even more promotion leading up to the July 17th, 2009 release and less time between Half-Blood Prince and the first of the Deathly Hallows films, which will start filming in February.

"The way it's weird to the fans, and this is true, is that there always was going to be a two-year gap somewhere. So there was either going to be a two-year gap between HP6 and HP7 Part 1 but now there's going to a gap between HP5 and HP6. But the films HP7 Part 1 and 2 are at the moment, we are planning on coming out in November 2010 and Summer 2011." So if you think about it like that, there will be a half-year wait now, then only a one-and-a-half year wait to Deathly Hallows: Part I, then a short half-year wait until the conclusion with Deathly Hallows: Part II. The case in point being this all means we'll get to the final few films much faster than before, and that should be exciting enough to just let all frustration go.

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