Warner Bros. grapples with Colo. shooting

Police are pic­tured out­side of a Cen­tury 16 movie the­atre where as many as 14 peo­ple were killed and many injured at a shoot­ing dur­ing the show­ing of a movie at the in Aurora, Colo., Fri­day. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

JAKE COYLE

AP Enter­tain­ment Writer

NEW YORK — Direc­tor Christo­pher Nolan expressed sor­row and dev­as­ta­tion Fri­day as the movie indus­try strug­gled with the deadly Col­orado shoot­ing at a mid­night screen­ing of Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” one of the most antic­i­pated films in years now enmeshed with a hor­ri­fy­ing tragedy.

“I would like to express our pro­found sor­row at the sense­less tragedy that has befallen the entire Aurora com­mu­nity,” Nolan said in a state­ment on behalf of the cast and crew. “I believe movies are one of the great Amer­i­can art forms and the shared expe­ri­ence of watch­ing a story unfold on screen is an impor­tant and joy­ful pastime.

“The movie the­atre is my home, and the idea that some­one would vio­late that inno­cent and hope­ful place in such an unbear­ably sav­age way is dev­as­tat­ing to me.”

The shoot­ing, which killed 12 and left nearly 60 injured in an Aurora, Colo., movie the­ater, rever­ber­ated through Hol­ly­wood and upended care­fully laid plans for the global release of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Warner Bros. quickly can­celed a pre­miere planned for Paris and can­celed press inter­views in France.

“Warner Bros. and the film­mak­ers are deeply sad­dened to learn about this shock­ing inci­dent,” read a state­ment from Warner Bros. “We extend our prayers and deep­est sym­pa­thies to the vic­tims, their loved ones and those affected by this tragedy.”

New York City’s police com­mis­sioner said he was told the gun­man had painted his hair red and called him­self the Joker — Batman’s neme­sis — but Aurora police would not con­firm that.

The stu­dio rushed to react to the tragedy. Dan Fell­man, head of dis­tri­b­u­tion for Warner Bros., said he had been up since 4 a.m. mak­ing calls.

“Every­body is very sad­dened by the event. We were obvi­ously look­ing for a very happy occa­sion for us,” Fell­man said. “It’s a dif­fi­cult way to begin. We’re just more con­cerned now with the well-being of those that were injured, of course.”

Warner Bros. had no fur­ther com­ment on whether screen­ings might be can­celed or pre­cau­tions taken. The stu­dio did take the unprece­dented step of delay­ing its report­ing of eagerly awaited week­end box office fig­ures for “Dark Knight” from Sun­day to Mon­day “out of respect for the vic­tims and their families.”

Warner Bros. also moved to pull trail­ers for its upcom­ing movie “Gang­ster Squad” from show­ings of “The Dark Knight Rises.” The trailer of the film, which stars Sean Penn and Ryan Gosling in a ruth­less war between ’40s Los Ange­les police and the mob, includes a scene of mob­sters fir­ing into a movie the­ater from behind the screen.

A per­son famil­iar with what was shown at the Aurora the­ater said the trailer did not play there. The per­son did not want to be iden­ti­fied because the per­son was not autho­rized to speak on the matter.

Cin­e­mark Hold­ings Inc., the chain that owns the the­ater where the shoot­ing hap­pened, said it was work­ing closely with local law enforce­ment. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the vic­tims, their fam­i­lies and loved ones, our employ­ees, and the Aurora com­mu­nity,” the com­pany said.

Movie the­aters around the coun­try con­tin­ued Fri­day show­ings of the film as planned, though some were step­ping up secu­rity and con­duct­ing bag searches. New York police com­mis­sioner Ray­mond Kelly said the city was pro­vid­ing extra secu­rity in New York the­aters play­ing “The Dark Knight Rises” ”as a pre­cau­tion against copy­cats and to raise the com­fort lev­els among movie patrons.”

In the wake of the shoot­ing, “The Dark Knight Rises” and the ear­lier Bat­man films, with their dark themes and empha­sis on ter­ror­ism, were sure to be heav­ily scru­ti­nized. The prac­tice of mid­night screen­ings for eagerly antic­i­pated block­busters, too, could come into question.

Kelly said that the sus­pected gun­man, James Holmes, had his hair painted red and iden­ti­fied him­self to author­i­ties say­ing he was the Joker. Heath Ledger played the Joker in the pre­vi­ous Bat­man install­ment, “The Dark Knight,” although his hair was col­ored green. Ledger died in 2008 from a toxic com­bi­na­tion of pre­scrip­tion drugs before the film was released.

“I don’t know if James Holmes cared deeply about Bat­man,” film critic Roger Ebert wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. “I sus­pect he cared deeply about see­ing him­self on the news.”

The National Asso­ci­a­tion of The­atre Own­ers issued a state­ment offer­ing their “hearts and prayers” to the vic­tims. The asso­ci­a­tion said, “Guest safety is, and will con­tinue to be a pri­or­ity for the­ater own­ers,” adding that the group would work closely with law enforce­ment and review secu­rity procedures.

“We share the shock and sad­ness of every­one in the motion pic­ture com­mu­nity at the news of this ter­ri­ble event,” said for­mer Sen. Chris Dodd, chair­man and CEO of the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica. “We extend our prayers and deep­est sym­pa­thies to the vic­tims, their loved ones and all those affected by this tragedy.”

“The Dark Knight Rises” had expec­ta­tions of being one of the biggest week­end open­ings ever. Its mid­night screen­ings earned $30.6 mil­lion, Warner Bros. said Fri­day. That’s the second-best mid­night open­ing ever, behind $43.5 mil­lion for the “Harry Pot­ter” finale. “The Dark Knight” earned a then-record $158.4 mil­lion in its first three days, includ­ing $18.5 mil­lion from mid­night screenings.

The PG-13 film played in 3,825 the­aters domes­ti­cally in the mid­night screen­ings, expand­ing to 4,404 cin­e­mas nation­wide Fri­day. Many show­ings on the week­end were sold out in advance.

Paul Der­garabe­dian, an ana­lyst for Hollywood.com who spe­cial­izes in box office, declined to spec­u­late on an effect the tragedy might have on the film over the week­end, say­ing it was too soon to esti­mate. But some movie­go­ers were already rethink­ing their plans.

Chris­tine Coo­ley, who works for the Uni­ver­sity of Florida at a cam­pus facil­ity near Tampa, Fla., said she and her 15-year-old daugh­ter were stunned by the TV cov­er­age of the shoot­ing Fri­day morning.

“Her imme­di­ate reac­tion was ‘I’m never going to the movie the­ater again. Why should I go some­where where I’m look­ing over my shoul­der wor­ry­ing that some­one is going to come in and harm us when I can wait six months and watch it in the safety of my own home?’”

Coo­ley said she tried to explain to her daugh­ter that it was an iso­lated inci­dent, “but I see where she’s com­ing from. Why put your­self in harm’s way?”

Oth­ers were undeterred.

“Just seem like another day at the movies,” said Jim­mie Baker, 40, of Harlem, N.Y., at a the­ater in Times Square.

Andrew Bross, 22, of Liv­ingston, N.J., returned Fri­day to watch “The Dark Knight Rises” for the sec­ond time in 12 hours.

“I go to the movies every week,” he said. “I’m going to keep going. I’m not going to let it stop me one bit.”

Damon Lin­de­lof, the co-creator of “Lost,” said he was going to see the film Fri­day night and sug­gested a mod­est trib­ute: a minute of silence as the end credit roll.

Posted by AP News on Jul 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.