Warner Brothers has another problem.
Warner Brothers is busy enough dealing with appropriate responses to the tragedy around the shooting at the screening of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Colorado. Now they also have to manage the “Gangster Squad” problem.
As you no doubt have heard, the trailer for “Gangster Squad,” a 1940s set film about gangsters in LA and one of Warner Brothers big fall releases, contained a scene with a shootout in a movie theater. The trailer was attached to about 30% of the showings of “The Dark Knight Rises,” but, needless to say, has been pulled.
So that’s the trailer. What to do about the movie, though, which was scheduled to start test screenings late this month? The easiest answer seems to be cut the scene. However, according to The Playlist, the scene is integral to the plot of the movie, so they would have to do rewrites and reshoots after cutting it. That would undoubtedly delay the scheduled September release–which I’m sure was set with Oscars in mind. The other option is to just delay it and hope that a little time will ease the effect of that scene. What if they do that, though, release it in maybe April, and there’s still anger at it? Then they’ll have wasted their release time slot to no avail.
I have a feeling that they’re going to end up doing some reshoots and try to get it out as soon as possible. That seems like the safest bet.
“Gangster Squad” was set for a September release. Ruben Fleischer directed and the cast includes Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Robert Patrick, Michael Peña, Giovanni Ribisi, Anthony Mackie, Emma Stone, Sean Penn.
