"Gangster Squad" may change after Colorado shooting

Sean Penn in a scene from "Gangster Squad."

/ Warner Bros.

(CBS News) Warner Bros. is reportedly planning to make changes to its film "Gangster Squad" in wake of the July 20 mass shooting during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Aurora, Colo.

The movie studio pulled the film's trailer - which included a scene where gunmen open fire through a movie screen into a crowded theater - following the attack, which killed 12 and injured dozens of others. Now, reports say, that sequence could be removed from the film itself.

According to the Los Angeles Times, which cites "knowledgeable people not authorized to discuss the matter publicly," studio executives are considering pushing back the release date and recutting the film to minimize the theater-shooting scene or removing it altogether.

A source also told Entertainment Weekly that Warner Bros. has decided to either cut that scene completely or have it reworked extensively.

The movie theater scene has been described as a pivotal part of the film, which is about the Los Angeles Police Department's fight to keep the mafia out of the city in the 1940s and '50s. Reports note that cutting or altering a key scene might require the film to undergo script revisions and reshoots, which could delay the film's release.

"Gangster Squad," which stars Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, is currently scheduled to be released on Sept. 7. E! News reports that a final decision about whether to push back the release date has not been made, but the studio may make an announcement as early as Tuesday.

[Cambridgal]

The movie, The Gangster Squad, is supposedly based upon my father, John O'Mara's efforts to eradicate mob control over crime in Los Angeles following WW2. My father shot his service revolver once during that time. What could have been an inspiring story of true courage and cleverness - ordinary men accomplishing extraordinary things - has been turned into a hyper-violent, totally fictionalized gun fest. I was horrified when I saw the original trailer for "Gangster Squad". Not only does Josh Brolin bear not even a remote resemblance to my skinny, scrappy blue-eyed Dad, the grim focus on guns and violence was highly disturbing. The movie theater shoot-out was especially offensive to me because my father and his men would never have engaged in any action that would have put the public at risk. And my parent's home was never shot up in a drive by - although my Mother did have to go for many days having no idea where my Father was, or when he would return when he went undercover. I suppose that subtle agony, still experienced every day by the spouses of our military, is too difficult to portray - better to shoot things up than demand quality acting. Just as highly processed foods and sugar alter our metabolism and our taste buds, so has Hollywood's greed and degraded opinion of what Americans find entertaining, results in ever more violent, toxic and dehumanizing spectacles disguised as "art". Is that really the sort of entertainment the American people want?

[livingtxlife]

Sure hope you get a bigger audience to share this with and I agree that it is our culture's fascination with guns that drives gun sales and shootings.

[MrEdgarPerez]

No word we can imagine, senseless, despicable, horrific, surreal, tragic, can seem to explain it all. Our condolences to the relatives and friends of the victims of the Aurora, Colorado shooting of July 20, 2012 ******/SQvFiQ