Though you can still debate whether it's still absolutely necessary, the upcoming drama Gangster Squad is reshooting its ending, which originally took place as a shootout inside a movie theater-- something pretty unpalatable in the wake of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado. Warner Bros. has set an August 20 start date for the reshoots, and have revealed that they'll now set the big final confrontation in L.A.'s Chinatown, with five days of night shoots scheduled for stars Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick, Troy Garity and Michael Pena.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, which broke the news, though the original shootout scene began in Grauman's Chinese Theater-- with the indelible images of tommy gun-wielding gangsters shooting from the back of the screen-- the action eventually spilled out on to Hollywood Boulevard, so it's not a huge stretch to move the whole thing to the street. Though the film is based on real-life efforts by the Los Angeles Police Department to curb gangster violence in the 40s and 50s, the Chinese Theater sequence never actually happened-- it was just intended to be a gorgeous grand finale, and probably would have been if real-life tragedy hadn't gotten in the way.
Gangster Squad, which was originally set for release in September, has been pushed back to a January 11 date, which gives director Ruben Fleischer plenty of time to incorporate the new sequence. You can still see some of the original shootout sequence in the film's original trailer, which in an example of spectacularly bad timing, was airing in front of screenings of The Dark Knight Rises until the Aurora shootings forced Warner Bros. to pull it. Who knows if we'll ever get to see the whole thing in full-- maybe when the events of Aurora have receded far enough into the past, we can at least see them as a Blu-Ray bonus feature.
