‘Harry Potter’ IMAX Release Delayed by ‘Transformers 2’

‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is hitting the IMAX news hard this week.  First came word that the IMAX cut of the film would be longer and feature more scenes of robots kicking each other’s tailpipes.  Now, we have word that, not only will the film’s running time be long, it’s actual sitting time in IMAX theaters will be infringing on ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.’

Due to a contract IMAX had with Paramount, room in IMAX theaters won’t be made for ‘Harry Potter’ until two weeks after the film’s initial release in regular theaters.  The film opens on July 14th, and it will be in two IMAX theaters in the country.  One is in New York and the other is in Los Angeles.  ‘Half-Blood Prince’ won’t be in IMAX theaters across the nation until July 29th.

This overlap is due to Warner Brothers’ decision late last year to push ‘Harry Potter’ from its original release date of November 21st, 2008.  If it would have been released then, the film would have been available to only 40 IMAX screens.  The change to July 2009 bumped the number of IMAX screen available to 60.

IMAX shares dropped 4% on Monday.  A Wall Street analyst claims the drop was a result of the money IMAX will be losing by not having ‘Half-Blood Prince’ available on its opening day.

Of course, IMAX waited until it was absolutely necessary to let this bit of information slip out to the public.  Now, with ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ tickets on sale, it was an issue that couldn’t be ignored any more.

Really, the only party this news hurts will be IMAX.  A helluva lot more people are going to see ‘Harry Potter’ on it’s opening weekend than see ‘Transformers 2’ on IMAX almost three weeks after its initial release.  This might actually help ‘Harry Potter,’ as people will want to see it when it first comes out, and they then might see it a second time on IMAX where the film will feature 12 minutes of 3D footage.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter