In the wake of the awful tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, it was revealed earlier this week that Warner Bros. had decided to remove a sequence from the Ruben Fleischer film “Gangster Squad” that featured gangsters shooting through a movie screen toward an audience and that the studio was already planning reshoots in order to make the then-locked-in September 7th release date.
But now it looks like the studio has come to their senses and realized that there would be no way to have reshoots and meet a release date that would only be a little more than a month away, so they have decided to postpone the film until next year. January 11th is looking like an appealing date right now as the only competition is the Jeremy Renner-starring “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” which is currently riding a wave of zero buzz. While we had hoped that cooler heads would prevail, and that the scene (which is said to be a key climatic sequence) would stay intact, it seems WB is still looking to take it out entirely. Nothing is firmed up at the moment as scheduling for both the reshoots and a subsequent press tour for the film need to be ironed out, but either way it looks like the "Gangster Squad" gang are looking at both changes to the movie and a delay in release date.
In other scheduling news, Disney has moved up its latest 3D-conversion re-release (cash-grab) “Monsters Inc.” from its mid-January 2013 release a month to December 19th. There’s been no official comment on why the change was made but if we had to guess, we'd say the Mouse House simply recognised a gap in family fare programming when they saw it. It's a busy week at the theater with Judd Apatow’s “This Is 40,” the Tom Cruise action vehicle “Jack Reacher” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty” all making their way to screens, along with Michael Haneke's "Amour" and the tsunami drama "The Impossible" in limited release. Seems like a smart counter-programing move, for Moms and Dads trying to find some family entertainment.
Finally, the latest low-budget horror effort from "Saw" and "Insidious" helmer James Wan, "The Conjuring," will land on January 25, 2013. Starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, the film follows a husband and wife team of demonologists and psychic investigators who encounter the most horrifying case of their career, when they take on spirits in a Rhode Island farmhouse. Boo! [THR/BoxOfficeMojo/Deadline]