A movie boss at Warner Bros studios has apologised to fans for delaying the much-anticipated release of the next film in the popular series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The film was scheduled to be released in November this year, but Warner Bros rescheduled it to July 17, 2008, an eight-month delay that dismayed many Potter fans.

In a statement released today, Warner Bros CEO Alan Horn apologised to fans for the decision, and said there was a silver lining.

(The Stuff NZ)

The red-carpet area at the premiere of the Disney Channel’s new Cheetah Girls movie last week looked less like the typical Hollywood cast party than some sort of United Nations session.

“One-third of the U.S. population is now nonwhite,” said Ms. Chase, one of a handful of prominent African-American producers in Hollywood. “That is reflected in the Disney Channel projects because they are committed to diversity. It has been a priority for them all along.”

None of which should be particularly surprising in the 21st century, except that television in general seems to be caught in one of a series of repeating cycles in which diversity all but disappears from the small screen.

(New York Times)

Although Anne Hathaway’s career has gone from strength to strength in recent years, the star admits she didn’t think she’d ever make it into movies.

“I didn’t ever think I’d have a movie career, I always thought I’d be a theatre actress and so just the idea now that I’ve gotten to play so many different roles, I’m really having a blast doing that,” said the star who went from costume drama Becoming Jane to playing a special agent in new film Get Smart.

“My general broad thing that I look for when I’m choosing a role is I like to be the exact opposite of what was the last thing I played,” she admits.

“I like things that frighten me. I like doing things I don’t believe I can do and sometimes I can’t do them and they don’t turn out well, and sometimes they do connect and that’s always good, that’s always such a relief.”

Starting in 2009, all of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc’s films will be in next-generation 3-D.

“This is the next innovation for the movie industry,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, said in an interview. “It impacts how we make our movies, how movie theaters present our films and how audiences experience our films.”

Katzenberg’s DreamWorks Animation and No. 1 chipmaker Intel Corp announced a 3-D movie image brand called InTru 3D at Intel’s Developer Forum in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The first movie from DreamWorks Animation to use the brand and logo will be “Monsters vs. Aliens,” coming out next March.

(Reuters)

War, as the song goes, may be good for absolutely nothing but war movies are another matter entirely. In Ben Stiller’s frequently hilarious new comedy,Tropic Thunder, a group of spoilt Hollywood actors are pitched from the movie set of their Vietnam War epic into the jungle of the Golden Triangle, where they’re mistaken for American soldiers by the local opium syndicate.

Both Tropic Thunder and the faltering blockbuster within it provide plenty of opportunities for references to the canon of Hollywood war movies, with the actors - who include egocentric action star Tugg Speedman (Stiller), lowbrow comic Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) and Oscar-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey jnr) - often re-creating the somewhat more serious intent of their predecessors.

(The Age)

Director John Hillcoat and colleagues, in adapting the Pulitzer-winning work, have toiled to weigh hopelessness against faith.

(LA Times)

Not so long ago, funny guy Martin Lawrence was tipped to be The Next Big Thing. John Patterson wonders how he got to Has Been so quickly.

(The Guardian UK)

In the first extract from his book, Sean Connery describes his childhood in an Edinburgh tenement and the surprising course that made him an actor.

(Times Online UK)

It won’t be long now before Oscar season picks up momentum and film critics across the country set about surveying the ambitions and aspirations behind the year’s most “serious” and “substantial” films. For many writers, the autumn rush is the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel — the promised sunrise after a stretch of silly and frivolous summer blockbusters concerned chiefly with opening-weekend receipts.

Yet while some critics shun the summer spectacles (so many of which are critic-proof to begin with), these films stand as the clearest examples of where cinema and commercialism overlap; they are essential case studies offering observers a window into the motives of the film industry and the mind-sets of filmgoers. Which blockbusters resonated with audiences (”The Dark Knight”), and why? Which seemingly safe bets flopped (”Speed Racer”)? Which dark horses excelled (”The Incredible Hulk”)?

More to the point, what does all this mean for the movie buff, the theater owner, and the studio executive?

(NY Sun)

Mike Leigh’s Naked made David Thewlis a star - and went on to haunt him. He and the director talk to Stuart Jeffries about the creation of one of British film’s greatest characters.

(The Guardian UK)