Well, this is kind of to be expected. After last week's tragedy in Colorado, Warner Brothers yanked a trailer for their upcoming mob flick, Gangster Squad, due to a violent scene in which a movie theater audience is shot up with bullets from behind the screen. Beyond that, the studio was considering a couple of options, which included yanking the scene and reshooting a new one, or simply bumping back the September 7th release. Well, they've made a decision, and it's one I don't agree with in the least.
According to Variety, the scene will now be taken out, and a new one shot in its place, keeping the original release date perfectly intact. I hate this move on a number of levels, but mainly because I think it speaks to how little regard the studios have for the intelligence of the American audience. They belittle us with insultingly stupid movies most of the year(Warner Brothers is particularly shameless on this), and then when something like this happens they think we're too dumb to separate a 1940s mafia story from a tragic current event. Come on, man. At the very least, move the film back until 2013 if it's that big of a deal, but then it wouldn't have a shot an Oscar, would it? Actually, it probably won't anyway, since by all accounts that scene is a major climactic one and now it'll be replaced by something that wasn't the intention of director Ruben Fleischer or writer Will Beal.
I understand Warner Brothers wanting to get as far away from the situation as possible, but the easiest way to do that would have been to shut up and just put out a new trailer. By the time September would have rolled around nobody would be thinking of associating Gangster Squad with what happened in Colorado.
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