“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” will be released later than initially announced and so will EA’s video game based on the same film, much to the chagrin of Harry Potter diehards.

British author J. K. Rowling has left an indelible mark on the world. Take it from her loyal, passionate fans who cannot get enough of her creation and anything and everything else related to it. The films, the video games, the playfulness of it all. The obsession, one could say.

It only goes to show then that Warner Bros.’ announcement that it would release the next film in the Harry Potter franchise half a year later than previously stated created much frustration.

Fans’ hopes that they could console themselves with a new video game from Electronic Arts Inc have now been smashed, with EA announcing this week that this project too has been delayed, so as to have a simultaneous or near-simultaneous release of both film and game.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” was to hit theaters on Nov. 21, originally, but the studio rethought its schedule, taking into consideration the Hollywood writers’ strike, and is now looking at a July 17 opening.

When the video game based on the film launches next summer, it will be available for all those aficionados who own Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 or a personal computer. If only they can contain their excitement for a while longer.

Harry Potter fans are not taking the announced delays lightly, as proven by the fuming emails they have sent Warner Bros., replete with suggestive quotes from the novels. Take for example this little artwork of an email, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal on its website, where one particularly ardent supporter writes to the “foul, loathsome evil little cockroach” that he or she considers the studio to be:

“A word of caution: Harry Potter fans are vicious creatures. They will not distinguish between the one they hunt and the one who gets in there (sic) way. Therefore I must warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you.”

The menacing tone continues: “It’s not in the nature of a Harry Potter fan to be forgiving. But you know happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to release the film on November 21st 2008.”

While threatening and unforgiving, these people at least have a sense of humor.

And they have initiated an online petition, where more than 45,000 individuals have already expressed their discontentment. This is just a fraction of the millions of people from around the world who have helped the first five Harry Potter films gross nearly $4.5 billion at the box office.