See you in January.
Deadline reports that Warner Brothers plans to announce that they will reshoot portions of “Gangster Squad” to excise the now unfortunate shootout scene set in a movie theater. The release date will move from September 7th to January 11th.
As you no doubt have heard, the film ran into trouble when a trailer featuring the scene where mobsters engage in a shootout in a movie theater was attached to showings of “The Dark Knight Rises.” The trailer was pulled, leaving WB with the problem of what to do with the movie; apparently this was a scene that was deeply involved in the plot and couldn’t just be cut out, the way some movies after September 11th simply edited out shots of the World Trade Center in New York set movies (including “Spider-Man”). Some suggested leaving the movie alone and just pushing the release date back to see if time would soften the imagery, but I think they made the right decision; six months won’t lessen the queasiness audiences would feel watching that scene.
“Gangster Squad” is based on the true story of the LAPD’s war on gangsters in the 1940s. It stars Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Emma Stone, Sean Penn. Ruben Fleischer directed Will Beall’s script.
