Though she's been a real jerk about most of her reporting today, Deadline's Nikki Finke did get Warner Bros. to confirm they're taking a very necessary step: removing the trailer for Gangster Squad that was set to play in front of most screenings of The Dark Knight Rises this weekend.
You may remember the trailer, which arrived in May, featured a lot of gun violence in setting up the story of gangster running Los Angeles in the 1940s. In particular it features a scene near the very end in which a group of men shoot through the back of a movie screen into a crowded theater. It's an elegant shot, saved for the very end as a grand finale, but of course wildly inappropriate to show in theaters this weekend given this morning's events. I wonder exactly when we'll be able to see it without associating it with the Aurora tragedy-- no doubt director Ruben Fleischer is at least considering right now whether it has to be cut entirely.
Hopefully a lot of people will be seeing The Dark Knight Rises again, overcoming fear mongering and whatever else is trying to keep them away to prove that moviegoing is still vital. And hopefully theater owners will be able to remove the trailer quickly enough that a poorly placed trailer doesn't make the experience any more jarring that it already will be.
