Warner Bros has walked a careful line since the tragic Colorado theater shooting that killed 12 and wounded 58 others at a midnight Batman premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora and officially postpones Gangster Squad for 2013 release.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, speculation about the postponement of Warner Bros Studio upcoming film ‘ Gangster Squad ‘ has been confirmed. The Gangster Squad film contained a scene of a movie theater shooting, and following the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado the studio has decided to not only push the premiere to the beginning of next year, but they will also be gathering the cast to reshoot.

Warner Bros company is considering a January 11 release next year, as opposed to the planned this autumn – September 7 premiere, but a decision would not be made until the other contributing factors, such as scheduling and press availability have been sorted out.

‘ Gangster Squad ‘ premiere date changed after Denver Batman massacre / Colorado theater shooting news

Deadline has confirmed that Warner Bros Studio is going to change the premiere date of Gangster Squad. This move will allow filmmakers enough time to edit and remove a shootout scene that takes place in a movie theater and replace with an alternate murder spree scene. Warner Bros wants the scene removed after the tragedy in Denver, Colorado at the midnight screening of Batman The Dark Knight Rises.

Right after the screening in Aurora, Warner Bros company pulled trailers for ‘ Gangster Squad ‘ – which featured bad guys firing machine guns at people seated in a movie theater – from theaters, the entertainment industry trade newspaper said, adding director Ruben Fleischer is now reworking the drastic scenes.

The Ruben Fleischer-directed ‘ Gangster Squad ‘ is an L.A. Confidential-style period mob tale that stars Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin and Emma Stone, and it takes place in the 1940s and ’50s during the crime reign of Mickey Cohen.

Warner Bros officially moves Gangster Squad release to January 2013

Director Christopher Nolan issued a statement on behalf of the cast and crew of Batman movie The Dark Night Rises, and superstars Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway have since released statements of their own. Warner Bros Studio did not release weekend box-office figures at the weekend out of respect for the victims and their families, and Colorado Government.

Some have criticized the Warner Bros studio’s actions — particularly its decision to reshoot parts of ‘ Gangster Squad ‘. The company has also kept a low profile since the shooting and has been careful not to take steps that would potentially damage ticket sales. But media outlets on the whole have applauded its efforts toward sensitivity.

The shooting in Colorado was not the first time events in real life collided with ones depicted in films. ‘ The Watch ‘, was originally called Neighborhood Watch. But that title became charged after neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, this year, and the studio announced in May that it had renamed the film.

Warner Bros company postpones ‘ Gangster Squad ‘ movie after Colorado theater shooting

An entertainment public relations executive who works on campaigns for major motion pictures, Tony Angellotti commented : ‘ Things happen all the time, and how you deal with it and how quickly you deal with it determines so much of what comes afterward. Sympathy, reaction, protest, whatever. If you’ve handled it right, you’ve mitigated the negative reactions ‘. He added also that a key factor for a studio to weigh in its response, is how a current issue could resurface with films for release down the line.

Despite the tragedy surrounding its release, Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises took more than 160 million dollars in North America during its opening weekend, a sum that fell below projections but still placed the film among the all-time top weekend openers.

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