Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Film

Africa

Egypt – July 15, 2009
Morocco – July 15, 2009
South Africa – July 17, 2009

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Asia

Bahrain – July 16, 2009
China – July 15, 2009
India – July 17, 2009
Indonesia – July 17, 2009
Israel – July 16, 2009
Japan (Tokyo World Premiere) – July 6, 2009
Japan – July 15, 2009
Kazakhstan – July 17, 2009
Kuwait – July 16, 2009
Lebanon – July 23, 2009
Malaysia – July 16, 2009
Philippines – July 16, 2009
Singapore – July 16, 2009
South Korea – July 16, 2009
Syria – July 23, 2009
Taiwan – July 15, 2009
Thailand – July 16, 2009
Turkey – July 17, 2009
United Arab Emirates – July 16, 2009

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Europe

Armenia – July 30, 2009
Austria – July 16, 2009
Belgium – July 15, 2009
Bulgaria – July 17, 2009
Croatia – July 23, 2009
Cyprus – July 24, 2009
Czech Republic – July 16, 2009
Denmark – July 17, 2009
Estonia – July 24, 2009
Finland – July 17, 2009
France – July 15, 2009
Germany – July 16, 2009
Greece – August 25, 2009
Hungary – July 23, 2009
Iceland – July 15, 2009
Italy – July 15, 2009
Latvia – July 24, 2009
Lithuania – July 17, 2009
Netherlands – July 15, 2009
Norway – July 17, 2009
Poland – July 24, 2009
Portugal – July 16, 2009
Romania – July 24, 2009
Russia – July 16, 2009
Serbia – July 16, 2009
Slovakia – July 16, 2009
Slovenia – July 16, 2009
Spain – July 15, 2009
Sweden – July 15, 2009
Switzerland (French) – July 15, 2009
Switzerland (German) – July 16, 2009
Ukraine – July 16, 2009
United Kingdom – July 15, 2009

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North America

Canada – July 15, 2009
Mexico – July 15, 2009
Panama – July 15, 2009
Puerto Rico – July 22, 2009
United States – July 15, 2009

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Oceania

Australia – July 15, 2009
New Zealand – July 15, 2009

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South America

Argentina – July 23, 2009
Bolivia – July 15, 2009
Brazil – July 15, 2009
Chile – July 16, 2009
Colombia – July 15, 2009
Peru – July 16, 2009
Uruguay – July 15, 2009
Venezuela – July 17, 2009

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"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Kimberley Jones | The Austin Chronicle | July 17, 2009

"Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince – Something Somber This Way Comes" - By Tasha Robinson | A.V. Club | July 14, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By David Medsker | Bullz-Eye

"HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE" - By Roger Ebert | Chicago Sun-Times | July 12, 2009

"Movie review: 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' -- 4 out of 5 stars" - By Roger Moore | The Chicago Tribune

"Spells and Snogging" - By Jeffrey M. Anderson | Combustible Celluloid | July 6, 2009

"Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Chris | Critical Outcast | July 20, 2009

"Horcruxed" - By Matt Adcock | Dark Matters | July 20, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Eric D. Snider | EricDSnider.com | July 15, 2009

"Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince" - By Robyn Jankel | Eye For Film | July 13, 2009

"Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Dan Stasiewski | The Film Chair | July 18, 2009

"Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Scott Beggs | Film School Rejects | July 9, 2009

"Dark Magic" - By MaryAnn Johnson | FlickFilosopher | July 14, 2009

"Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Review" - By Michelle Thomas | Future Movies | July 17, 2009

"Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Jeremy Welsch | Geeks of Doom | August 21, 2009

"Philip French finds the young wizard firmly in the grip of rampaging hormones" - By Philip French | The Guardian | July 19, 2009

"Trouble with deatheaters is only half the problems facing an increasingly girl-concious Harry Potter boy wizard." - By Colin Fraser | MovieReview

"In Latest ‘Harry Potter,’ Rage and Hormones" - By Manohla Dargis | The New York Times | July 14, 2009

"High School Couples" - By Stefan S. | A Nutshell Review | July 18, 2009

"The Harry Potter Series is Officially the Best Franchise Ever with Half-Blood Prince" - NY Movie Reviews

"Boy wizard fights evil, falls in love" - By Brian Orndorf | OhMyNews | July 17, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Matt Mungle | The Phantom Tollbooth | July 14, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009): B" - The Projection Booth | July 15, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Peter Travers | Rolling Stone | July 14, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Stephanie Zacharek | Salon | July 15, 2009

"Movie review: 'Half-Blood Prince' satisfies" - By Amy Biancolli | San Francisco Chronicle | July 15, 2009

"HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE" - Sci-Fi Movie Page

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Rich Phippen | Sky Movies | November 5, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" - By Nick Schager | Slant Magazine | July 14, 2009

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)" - By Dustin Putman | TheFilmFile | July 13, 2009

"The students at Hogwarts are forced to grapple with heavy issues of mortality, memory and loss." - By Todd McCarthy | Variety | July 5, 2009

"Harry Potter's Magic Continues to Beguile in Half-Blood Prince" - By Scott Foundas | The Village Voice | July 15, 2009

Awards Won

AFI Awards

Special Award
Won along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

Art Directors Guild

Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award
David Heyman, David Barron, David Yates, Chris Columbus, Mike Newell, Alfonso Cuarón, J.K. Rowling, Steve Kloves, Michael Goldenberg, Stuart Craig, Neil Lamont, Stephenie McMillan
Won along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards

Top Box Office Film
Nicholas Hooper

British Academy Britannia Awards

The John Schlesinger Britannia Award for Artistic Excellence in Directing
David Yates
Won along withHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2.

British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards

Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema
Won along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

Golden Trailer Awards

Best Wild Posts
Warner Bros. (For "Individual Wild Posts")

MTV Movie Awards

Best Villain
Tom Felton

National Board of Review Awards, USA

Special Achievement in Filmmaking
David Heyman (For "The Harry Potter Franchise - A Distinguished Translation from Book to Film")
Won along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

National Movie Awards, UK

Best Family Film

Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards

Best Live Action Family Film

Rembrandt Awards, Netherlands

Best DVD Release

SFX Awards, UK

Best Film

Teen Choice Awards

Choice Summer Movie: Action Adventure

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Nominations

Academy Awards

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Bruno Delbonnel

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films

Best Fantasy Film

Best Costume
Jany Temime

Best Production Design
Stuart Craig

Best Special Effects
Tim Burke, John Richardson, Nicolas Aithadi, Tim Alexander

Art Directors Guild

Excellence in Production Design - Fantasy Film
Stuart Craig (production designer), Neil Lamont (supervising art director), Andrew Ackland-Snow (senior art director), Alastair Bullock (art director), Sloane U'Ren (art director), Gary Tomkins (art director), Hattie Storey (art director), Tino Schaedler (art director), Martin Foley (art director), Molly Hughes (art director), Stephen Swain (on set art director), Ashley Winter (on set art director), Andrew Williamson (illustrator), Adam Brockbank (illustrator), Rob Bliss (illustrator), Peter McKinstry (illustrator), Alex Smith (set designer), Denise Ball (set designer), Emma Vane (set designer), Miraphora Mina (graphic designer), Eduardo Lima (graphic designer), Marcus Williams (scenic artist), Matt Walker (scenic artist), Stephenie McMillan (set decorator)

Awards Circuit Community Awards

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

British Academy Children's Awards

Kids' Vote - Feature Film

British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards

Best Production Design
Stuart Craig, Stephenie McMillan

Best Special Visual Effects
John Richardson, Tim Burke, Tim Alexander, Nicolas Aithadi

British Society of Cinematographers

Best Cinematography
Bruno Delbonnel

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards

Favorite Film Franchise
Nominated along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

Golden Trailer Awards

Best in Show
Warner Bros. Pictures, The Ant Farm (For "Great Wizards")

Best Summer 2009 Blockbuster Poster
Warner Bros. (For "Glasses Teaser")

Summer 2009 Blockbuster
Warner Bros. Pictures, The Ant Farm

Grammy Awards

Best Score Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
Nicholas Hooper

Irish Film and Television Awards

Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Film
Michael Gambon

Motion Picture Sound Editors

Best Sound Editing - Foreign Feature
Glen Gathard (Foley Mixer)

Best Sound Editing - Sound Effects, Foley, Dialogue, and ADR in a Foreign Feature Film
James Mather (supervising sound editor), Bjorn Ole Schroeder (supervising dialogue editor), Daniel Laurie (supervising adr editor), Michael Fentum (sound effects editor), Dominic Gibbs (sound effects editor), Andy Kennedy (sound effects editor), Jed Loughran (sound effects editor), Jamie McPhee (sound editor), Derek Trigg (foley editor), Allan Jenkins (music editor), Peter Burgis (foley artist), Andie Derrick (foley artist)

MTV Movie Awards

Best Movie

Best Male Performance
Daniel Radcliffe

Best Female Performance
Emma Watson

Online Film & Television Association Awards

Best Production Design

Best Visual Effects
John Richardson, Tim Burke, Tim Alexander, Nicolas Aithadi

People's Choice Awards

Favorite Movie

Favorite Movie Fan Following
Nominated along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

Favorite On-Screen Team
Rupert Grint, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson

Satellite Awards

Best Motion Picture, Animated, or Mixed Media

Best Youth DVD
(For "Harry Potter: The Complete 8 Film Collection")
Nominated along with the rest of the Harry Potter films.

Visual Effects Society Awards

Outstanding Matte Paintings in a Feature Motion Picture
Tania Richard (matte painter), David Basalla (td), Emily Cobb (3D artist)

Young Artist Awards

Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actress
Evanna Lynch

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• The length of the 35mm film is 13,759 feet.
• Director Guillermo del Toro turned down the chance to direct this film so that he could work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008).
• Helen McCrory had been cast to play Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) but had to back out because she was pregnant. She was later cast as Bellatrix's sister, Narcissa Malfoy, in this film.
• Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, who plays eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, is the nephew of Ralph Fiennes, who plays Lord Voldemort (formerly Tom Riddle).
• Robert Knox, who plays Marcus Belby, was tragically stabbed to death on May 24, 2008, just days after filming wrapped. The film is dedicated to him.
• Christian Coulson, who played Tom Riddle in Chamber of Secrets, expressed an interest in returning as the teenage Riddle for this film, but David Yates felt that Coulson was too old for the role (he was close to 30).
• Thomas James Longley auditioned for the role of teenage Tom Riddle but lost out to Frank Dillane.
• Dame Maggie Smith completed filming this film while undergoing radio-therapy as treatment for breast cancer.
• Alan Horn, President and Chief Operating Officer of Warner Bros., stated that due to "repercussions of the writers' strike" they were offered "new windows of opportunity that we [Warner Bros.] wanted to take advantage of." The film’'s release date was then moved from November 21, 2008, to July of 2009.
• The original script included all of Dumbledore's memories about Voldemort as outlined in the source novel, but the director insisted on trimming them down as. According to Steve Kloves, "... he wanted to showcase Voldemort's rise without getting overly involved with his past as Riddle."
• This is the first Harry Potter film to be rated PG by the MPAA since Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004).
• There is a scene in this movie in which Death Eaters, led by Bellatrix Lestrange and Fenrir Greyback, attack the Burrow where Harry, the Weasleys, Lupin, and Tonks are staying. This particular scene was not in the book but was made just for the movie to serve as a representative of all the news reports, which are scattered around in the source novel, about various attacks by Death Eaters on the wizard community. It was considered to provide better pacing for a movie to have Harry actually experience one such attack firsthand, rather than hearing/reading about those that kept happening to some other students or their relatives.
• Shipped to some theaters under the moniker "Candlelit."
• Bruno Delbonnel was chosen to be the film's cinematographer by David Yates: "The choice of angles, the extreme close-ups, the pacing of the scenes... it's very layered, incredibly rich."
• According to production designer Stuart Craig, Tom Riddle's orphanage is based on buildings from the Liverpool Docklands, and it is influenced by Victorian-Georgian architecture. In fact, the orphanage's exterior uses original Victorian glaze bricks to give the set a very hard structure.
• According to VFX supervisor Tim Alexander, completing the Inferi attack took several months: "It was much bolder and scarier than we imagined that they'd ever go in a Potter movie. David Yates was really cautious of not making this into a zombie movie, so we were constantly trying to figure out how not to make these dead people coming up look like zombies. A lot of it came down to their movement - they don't move fast, but they don't move really slow or groan and moan. We ended up going with a very realistic style." He also noted that Inferi are skinnier than zombies, as well as being waterlogged and grey.
• Dumbledore's ring of fire took computer graphic artist Christopher Horvarth eight months to complete.
• Over 7,000 girls auditioned for the role of Lavender Brown and read from a scene with Madam Pomfrey, Hermione, and Ron. Jessie Cave was eventually given the role. Ironically, Emma Watson recommended Jessie Cave for the role, although Cave hadn't attended any auditions.
• Jamie Campbell Bower hoped to be cast as a young Riddle. He was instead cast as the teenage Gellert Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• Terry Gilliam, who was J.K. Rowling's personal choice to direct the first film, was approached to direct this film. However, Gilliam said, "Warner Bros. had their chance the first time around, and they blew it."
• Bill Nighy was interested in playing Rufus Scrimgeour, but there was no place for the character in the film. He did play this role in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, though.
• The night scenes were filmed in the quaint village of Lacock and the cloisters at Lacock Abbey for three nights, October 25-28, 2007. Filming took place from 5 p.m.-5 a.m., and residents of the street were asked to black out their windows with dark blinds.
• When Draco Malfoy goes to the Room of Requirement for the final time, you can clearly see the harp that put Fluffy to sleep and the king from the game of chess that were in the first movie.
• This is the second film to not open with a Harry-centric event. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire opened with a scene from a chapter of Book 4, "The Riddle House." Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens with an event that is mentioned in the first chapter of Book 6, "The Other Minister," where the Death Eaters collapse a bridge in London. (Although the first images in this film are of Dumbledore and Harry at the Ministry of Magic after the battle with Voldemort in the fifth film, the first legitimate and complete scene is the Death Eater attack.)
• The tapestry seen near the Room of Requirement is the last of seven in "The Hunt of the Unicorn" (or the "Unicorn Tapestries") series, called "The Unicorn in Captivity." The real tapestry can be found at the Cloisters in New York City.
• Mr Weasley's shed of Muggle artifacts contains, among other things, two Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriters and an HP Laserjet 4.
• Eleanor Columbus had originally reprised her character of Susan Bones, but her scene was cut.
• This is the first Harry Potter film that does not feature any aspect of Defense Against the Dark Arts classes on screen, either direct (Movies 2-5) or indirect (Movie 1). The only mention of the subject occurs when Dumbledore announces Snape's appointment to the open teaching position.
• When Harry is in Dumbledore's office at the end of the film, a bowl of lemon drops can be seen on his desk. This is a throwback to the first film, when Dumbledore announces they are his favorite Muggle candy.
• At the beginning of the film, the Death Eaters destroy the Millennium Bridge in London. The bridge is not specifically named in the book. The book is set in 1995-1996, according to the canon timeline. The Millennium Bridge was not constructed until 1998 and opened on June 10, 2000.
• The omission in this movie of the Battle of the Astronomy Tower between members of the Order of the Phoenix and Death Eaters was due to the fact that they writers did not want to seek repetition when they film the Battle of Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 (2011).
• This is the second time Tom Felton and Jim Broadbent have worked together on film, the first time being on the 1997 film The Borrowers (1997) as members of the four-inch tall family, son Peagreen Clock and his father Pod Clock, respectively.
• In the flashback scene in which Dumbledore visits the young Tom Riddle in the orphanage, a photograph on the wall of Tom's room depicts the same place that Dumbledore and Harry travel to in search of the third Hocrux (the locket). There are also seven rocks on the windowsill, which is the same number of Hocruxes that Voldemort created.
• J.K. Rowling read through the script for this film and found a line where Dumbledore mentions a girl he had a crush on when he was younger. After reading it, she informed the filmmakers that Dumbledore is in fact gay and that his only romantic infatuation was with the wizard Grindelwald, whom he later had to defeat in a wizard duel. She later made this information public while promoting the final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• Originally, the shooting script was written so that Harry takes possession of Dumbledore's wand after he is killed. Shortly before filming began, the final book in the series came out, in which Dumbledore's wand, and who possesses it, turns out to be a major issue, so the script had to be changed.
• Dumbledore's fall from the tower filled Alan Rickman with nostalgic glee since it harked back to his first hit Die Hard (1988), where his character fell from a tall building. Rickman felt that at least "he was on the other end in this film!"
• After Dumbledore's death, Harry visits his office one last time. As the camera scans Dumbledore's desk before stopping on the wand, there is a quick glimpse of a letter. It looks like it is addressed to Rufus Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, and is possibly a copy of Dumbledore's will, which comes into play in Book 7.
• This is the first film in which the US and UK age rating has differed. - Submitted by former MuggleNet staff member Nick

Information courtesy of IMDb.