Harry Potter Delay Makes For Outraged Fans and an Official Statement From Head of Warner Bros.

Alan Horn issues statement regarding HBP delay

Alan Horn, President of Warner Brothers, has issued a statement in response to the large amount of disappointment from their decision to delay Half-Blood Prince until July 17th, 2009:

Many of you have written to me to express your disappointment in our moving "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" to Summer 2009. Please be assured that we share your love for Harry Potter and would certainly never do anything to hurt any of the films. Over the past 10 years, we have nurtured and protected each film, and the integrity of the books upon which they are based, to the best of our ability. The decision to move "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was not taken lightly, and was never intended to upset our Harry Potter fans. We know you have built this series into what it is, and we thank you for your ongoing enthusiasm and support. If I may offer a silver lining: there would have been a two-year gap between "Half-Blood Prince" and the much-anticipated first part of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which opens in November 2010. So although we have to wait a little longer for "Half-Blood Prince," the wait from that film until "Deathly Hallows" will be less than 18 months. I am sorry to have disappointed you now, but if you hold on a little longer, I believe it will be worth the wait.

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Also, in case you hadn't heard of the petition going around protesting the delay, it got more than 35,000 signatures. Read more at http://www.aceshowbiz.com

Also also, if you wanted to send a letter yourself (as the site keepers did) we sent ours to WarnerBros@email-warnerbros.com here's what it said (you know, for a little inspiration... and I'm just so proud of it!)

I think that it's bloody outrageous that the next Harry Potter movie has been bumped back to next year, and that Twilight will take it's place. If you all are worried about people not being excited for the movies now that the book series is over, and maybe you wanted to promote it better, but bumping it back is just upsetting everyone who's excited about it now.
From what I understand (entertainment weekly's article about it, muggle.net and rumors I've heard) you it to earn as much as dark knight did, but I think it's not worth it because now I (and my friends who I've talked to about it with) don't want to go out and see Warner films in the theater. So by postponing half blood release it's made me loose interest in the series and other movies (and now I won't be able to go and see twilight without thinking about how much better it would have been to see Harry Potter).
As you see this has obviously gotten people riled up (a petition with over 23000 signatures I understand), these are some things I've heard:
"...bloody people,naive,ignorant, LAME!", " Absolutely ridiculous... cowards!", and " Warner's decision was extremely empty-headed and pitifully stupid."

Well, I thought it was the courteous thing to do, bringing all of this to your attention, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would pass this on to the correct authority if this is an inappropriate address to send this to. I'd love to hear back too, yours most sincerely, Sierra