They seem so harmless, the Harry Potter nerds. They line up at bookstores in an orderly fashion, decked out in their cute pointy hats and spectacles. They write loving odes to Dumbledore on their MySpace pages. Some of them form bands and play non-threatening “wizard rock.” Alan Horn, president of Warner Bros., certainly must have thought them harmless enough when his company switched the release date for the latest Potter film from November to next summer. Imagine his surprise when the Potterheads reacted like Patriots fans after Brady went down for the season.

“To a world of wand-wielding Harry Potter loyalists, the studio executive had crossed to the dark side,” writes Lauren A. E. Schuker in the L.A. Times. “Within hours of Warner Bros.'s decision to postpone the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to next July, hate mail began to pour into the studio. An online petition expressing fans' disgust with the decision garnered more than 45,000 signatures. The studio says it even received death threats. ‘I hope you choke on your own saliva,’ snarled one fan in an email.”

The official Warner Bros. explanation for moving Half-Blood Prince – “that the film would make a bigger splash in the middle of summer” – doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. They didn’t already know this before they scheduled it for November? And wouldn’t the Potter fans turn out in droves no matter when it was released? Horn did issue an apology, but the faithful aren’t having it. In addition to the petitions, they’re turning to YouTube to express their dismay. As you can see, even Hitler is upset.