What? Noooooooooo!

Valkyrie is in for this winter and Harry Potter is out?

Warner Brothers has just announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will NOT see release this November as planned, but will be held over until July 17th 2009, the same day as Will Farrell’s Land of the Lost.

The WB is saying that this will be a better time to debut a family tent-pole film and that the writers’ strike of earlier this year left a gap in the summer schedule. Either way, this sucks for Harry Potter fans.

The only upside is that this scheduling shuffle does not change production dates on the final Harry Potter movies, so – logically – the magic-less gap will be shorter. But, still. Who’s to say Warners won’t just re-arrange the last films to better suit the box office?

Actually, they will. We’re betting Deathly Hallows Parts 1 and 2 will fall on either end of a very long summer.

And our excitement over the winter popcorn fare has all but disappeared.

Twilight on 12/12? Give us a break.