YA New York

So the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been delayed to July 2009. When I found out, I was all, “Did they not finish production or something? Is there a problem???”

No:

Allen Horn, president and COO, Warner Bros.:

Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, 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. 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.”

(Article.)

Dude. This is a financial decision? And you said so? Out loud? Wow. That’s just kind of … umm … stupid.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 15,900 fans have already signed a petition asking Warner Bros. to keep the original release date (November). Now, I’m all about fans working for change or whatever, but … also stupid. Because, no offense, I don’t think it’s going to change stuff. Still, you know. The petition is here, and actually as of this writing the number of signatures is up past 17,000. You can sign or not. I don’t care much …

Because these movies generally suck. Except for the third one. But Half-Blood Prince is my favorite HP book, and I would be distressed if it turned out to be another stiff translation from the page to the screen. (Though of course I’ll go anyway.)

Oh, and maybe you’ve heard about the video game Electronic Arts has been planning to go launch at the same time as the movie (that is, November)? They haven’t decided what to do. Wait. Who plays these games, anyway? Are the HP games any good? Wasn’t this one supposed to be … maybe … decent?

No word about either from JK Rowling on her site. Oh, but are you psyched to read The Tales of Beedle the Bard? I kind of want the Collector’s Edition, which is one of those Amazon.com-only exclusives. But it does look shiny. And it’s only, you know … what??? A hundred bucks? Oh. Maybe someone will get me a Chrismannukkah gift, or something. Hmph. Although it is for charity, I suppose. Still …

All around, HP news not very cheerful today. (Not that it should be. Isn’t this series, like, over???)

(Our super-awesome LA and film correspondent, Jami B., weighs in in comments.)

Okay, I’m still on blog-cation, but I figured I’d throw you a bone, mainly because our LA correspondent, Jami B., told me a few days ago that the trailer for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (the movie) is online. If you haven’t read the book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, you need to get a move on, because the film debuts Oct. 3 and it promises to be super-awesome. Although, as we all know, films are almost never quite as awesome as the books upon which they’re based. Anyway. Go watch the trailer, then go read or re-read the book. How psyched are you???

PS. That pic to the left is from the movie poster. You can click it to enlarge the image. ♥

• Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother, wrote an awesome article here about being a YA writer, about the importance of YA, and other general goodness that I support.

• Rachel Vail, who if you’ve been paying any attention at all you’ll know wrote Lucky, will be reading from said book Thursday, July 10 at 5 p.m. Books of Wonder, y’all. 18 W. 18th Street.

• In the next few days, I’ll be re-vamping my links section. Any authors who have blogs will have their blogs linked rather than their main pages. Any authors who don’t have blogs will be shot. In case you are afraid for authors’ lives, please be aware that the last statement there was in jest, and that I have no intentions of ever harming any author in any way. Right. So I’ll be re-organizing the sidebar. E-mail me or leave a comment if you want to be added or to have your link changed, yeah?