We already knew that Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs [1] was slated to be the "tentpole" movie of 2009. Do or die, the release date was flagged as July 4th and, at the time, there didn't seem to be too much around it that would have a drastic impact on box office numbers. Unfortunately, that has now changed. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has moved from November 2008 to nine days after our release next summer. Harry Potter is a guaranteed #1 at the box office - it's a total punch in the gut.

Do why did this happen? A Fox vs. Warner executive spat? Speculation is that it's actually the lead actor's fault. Apparently, it's a little hard to sell a family film while the lead actor is naked on Broadway [2].

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will be right in the middle of his sensational, highly publicized run on Broadway in the play, "Equus." Radcliffe appears naked in the play, on stage, and has sex in it as well. That's not the image Warner Bros. wants associated with bespectacled Harry, who remains chaste and virginal. Read more [3]...

I very seriously doubt Ice Age will move forward or back in response, although Twilight [4] has made a corresponding jump. One can only hope that the theaters will be so packed with people trying to see Harry Potter, that we'll get a lot of second-hand traffic. Cross your fingers and your toes. There's so much going on right now with the move to Greenwich, the push for stereoscopy...it would be disappointing to be totally squashed after only a week out.