After last week’s tragic shooting spree during a Dark Knight Rises premiere in Colorado, the entire cinematic community still sits in a state of shock and mourning. Warner Brothers has already refused to report weekend earnings for the superhero threequel out of respect for those lives senselessly lost, but the studio isn’t stopping there.
Screen Rant is reporting that Reuben Fleischer‘s crime thriller Gangster Squad will re-enter the cutting stage due to one particular scene involving an all-too-similar scenario, opting to remove the sequence completely.
Loosely based off true events involving the LAPD’s attempts to silence famed gangster Mickey Cohen, Gangster Squad injects some Hollywood flair and creativity with fabricated entertainment to provide a what should be a gripping Noir tale. One such embellishment involves a shooting inside the famed Gruman’s Chinese Theater, a scene Warner Bros. has officially decided to cut due to the sensitive nature.
Gangster Squad is currently slated for a September 7 release date, but we can surely expect a delay due to Warner Bros. decision. Recent reports deem the Gruman shootout an integral part of Fleischer‘s tale and Mickey Cohen’s story, meaning reshoots may encompass a large chunk of script material. Depending on just how heavily the shootout weighs in Will Beall‘s script, Fleischer may have to alter a large chunk of narration.
Warner Bros. made the right move in my opinion, avoiding any circumstances that my drum up still-potent emotions left by the calamity. We don’t need to be so quickly reminded how a simple midnight showing turned horrific for a theater of innocent civilians. Our prayers go out to those friends and family still coping with the devastating events.
I think we can all be in agreement Warner Bros. did what they had to, but do you think deleting such a scene will noticeably hinder Gangster Squad‘s storytelling and can the film quickly rebound and still meet its release date?
