Harry Potter Fans Revolt

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:00:00 GMT

They seem so harmless, the Harry Potter nerds. They line up at bookstores in an orderly fashion, decked out in their cute pointy hats and spectacles. They write loving odes to Dumbledore on their MySpace pages. Some of them form bands and play non-threatening “wizard rock.” Alan Horn, president of Warner Bros., certainly must have thought them harmless enough when his company switched the release date for the latest Potter film from November to next summer. Imagine his surprise when the Potterheads reacted like Patriots fans after Brady went down for the season.

“To a world of wand-wielding Harry Potter loyalists, the studio executive had crossed to the dark side,” writes Lauren A. E. Schuker in the L.A. Times. “Within hours of Warner Bros.'s decision to postpone the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to next July, hate mail began to pour into the studio. An online petition expressing fans' disgust with the decision garnered more than 45,000 signatures. The studio says it even received death threats. ‘I hope you choke on your own saliva,’ snarled one fan in an email.”

The official Warner Bros. explanation for moving Half-Blood Prince – “that the film would make a bigger splash in the middle of summer” – doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. They didn’t already know this before they scheduled it for November? And wouldn’t the Potter fans turn out in droves no matter when it was released? Horn did issue an apology, but the faithful aren’t having it. In addition to the petitions, they’re turning to YouTube to express their dismay. As you can see, even Hitler is upset.

Warner Brother Tries To Give The Distinguished Competition A Boost

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Despite the fact that The Dark Knight has made roughly eighty-five kerjillion dollars on its way to breaking nearly every box office record since the dawn of motion photography, DC Comics -- and, by extention, their parent company Warner Brothers -- is widely perceived as the big loser in the battle of superhero movies. Much as Marvel Comics did in the early '60s, Marvel Films -- the people responsible for Iron Man, Spider-Man and the X-Men franchise -- has largely trounced what it used to call its "Distinguished Competition". Although both companies have turned their franchise characters into successful movies, Marvel's have generally been seen as more successful, more entertaining, more true to their comic book origins, and most of all, easier to get made. While DC continues to farm its characters out to various studios, Marvel has consolidated its filmmaking power into its studio arm, ensuring a production continuity that provides another curious parallel to the '60s, when the more coherent continuity of Marvel's comics appealed to readers.

This is a situation that Warner Brothers, who's been making movies even longer than DC has been making comics, is eager to change. In an article in the latest Variety, Warner execs and DC bigwigs alike discuss what's being done to avoid the sort of missteps that have led to their being thought of as the second-tier player in superhero films. From greenlighting unprofitable tripe like Catwoman to dragging its feet on potential blockbusters like Wonder Woman and Justice League, DC's film development players have made a number of high-profile mistakes (let's not even speak of the botch-job that was the making and marketing of Superman Returns) that have led them to be seen as failures despite having put out the biggest blockbuster in four decades.

DC development executives Jeff Robinov (production vice-president) and Gregory Noveck (senior VP of creative affairs) describe their recent meetings with Warner Brothers head Alan Horn in terms of a visit to the woodshed with an angry dad. Horn doesn't deny it: "If you do it wrong," he says of developing sucessful films from the billion-dollar DC empire, "you're dead, you're out of there." In a line that will bring power-mad smiles to the faces of geeks everywhere, Robinov talks about no wanting to piss off the Comic-Con contingent, and speaks of the difficulty of making a good film while keeping the fanboys happy. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comic book industry, and it takes time to understand the characters and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their worlds are," says Robinov, who probably spent high school going outdoors and dating girls, in the understatement of the year, "That's part of the education that we're going through." It's an education that Horn no doubt hopes won't prove too costly.

Hey, how about that? A whole post about superhero movies, and no mention of Watchmen! I may get out of this year alive after all...

The Screengrab : alan horn

Harry Potter Fans Revolt

Warner Brother Tries To Give The Distinguished Competition A Boost