Warner Bros. suprisely announced that they have moved back the release date of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from Nov. 11 to July 17, 2009.

Warner president Alan Horn said:
"Like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films — changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of," he said. "We agreed the best strategy was to move 'Half-Blood Prince' to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer."

The studio still has a plan to release the first part of final book, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows', as planned on November 19, 2009.