Just two days after Warner Bros. announced that it would be doing last minute edits on its upcoming thriller Gangster Squad, because of a scene that mirrored last week's movie theater shooting in Aurora, CO, the studio has announced that it is pulling the 1940s gangster film from the fall schedule entirely. The film, directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Ryan Gosling, was set to open on September 7th, but is now being moved indefinitely. The studio might be looking at January, a month that, post-Oscar blitz and all, is traditionally a dumping ground for lesser movies.

It seems Warner Bros. originally hoped to tinker with the movie and still get it out on time, but as the scene in question — in which men open fire on a movie theater audience — is fairly integral to the story, the revisions required more time than available. So, Gangster Squad, a somewhat promising-looking movie, is distant collateral damage of a tragedy that has affected many other things in far more important ways. Gosling and company will have to wait and that's that.

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Richard Lawson