_arry _ott--

Background: I'm fairly neutral on the Harry Potter phenomenon. I haven't read the books, but my wife loves them, and whenever the movies come out, I check them out and think they are entertaining. Not awesome, but pretty good for what they are. If I were 12 years old, I'm pretty sure I would think they are awesome.

I have to give the powers-that-be behind Harry Potter some real credit for the posters and billboards for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Not just because they are nice looking, but because someone must have fought some serious battles to get these things out there. I can just hear the heated argument of some movie studio executive: "You can't even read the name of the movie! How do expect someone to see your movie when all you can read is "-arr- -otte"? And why doesn't every poster have Harry on it? He's the lead character!!!! People don't know who this blonde guy is! This is going to kill our box office numbers."

Additionally, a lot of times its seems like you see interesting teaser artwork like this on some movie blog, but you never see the really cool posters in the wild. For example, I only saw the posters for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button poster below on the left on the internet, while I saw the one below on the right in theaters. Apparently the studio felt that the backward type was a bit too much for the physical world. Anyway, kudos to you, Harry Potter people.