Does the shootings of July 20th in Aurora, Colorado at the “The Dark Knight” opening correlate with the general violence seen today’s movies? Warner Bros. may deny it but there are a few others that may think differently. There has been a debate about the violence in Warner Bros. films for decades, but it was revisited after the Colorado shootings. The controversy was so big that Warner Bros. decided to delay the showing of their next movie, Gangster Squad.
Gangster Squad was originally set to premier in September, but didn’t end up being premiered until the following January. Warner Bros made an effort to cover up the fact that they changed the date, but it was still leaked out. They wanted to make sure the movie based on police war mobsters had enough time for the tragedy to cool down. However, one thing that was noticeable was when Warner Bros. pulled the trailers for the movie. The trailers opened with gunmen firing into a movie interesting… how interesting, and smart that they would decide to take that off based on the recent tragedy. I think Warner Bros. reaction to this proved that they may at least see people’s concern.
I read an article written in the New York Times discussing this issue. They traced Warner Bros. violent history all the way back to the 1930’s with a series of gangster films. Every time movies such as “I am a fugitive” or “Bonnie and Clyde” came out, newspapers were always in a fury with issues of the violence. Warner Bros. was actually sued for their “I am a Fugitive” because of defamation.
Even though they have been faced with ridicule and lawsuits none of it has prevented Warner Bros from continuing with violence filled movies. “Clockwork Orange” was a very popular topic, then came along “Dirty Harry”.
In 1990’s actors and actresses were avoiding being part of such violent films. Arnold Schwarzenegger known for, “I’ll be back” even backed away. Actors were fearful that the action genre had gone too far and didn’t want to be a part of them.
I guess this didn’t put a halt on the violent movies of Warner Bros. When famous director Quentin Tarantino made “Natural Born Killers” and the “Kill Bill” series.
Warner Bros. hasn’t seemed to do much to stop producing violent films over the years, and in my opinion I don’t know if they really need to do anything. If people don’t want to see the violence, they don’t have to watch the movie; Warner Bros. makes plenty of other movies. I think their tactics of not making a big deal out of the controversy has been successful because before researching I never heard anything against Warner Bros. Yes, I noticed there are some unnecessary violent movies, but I never held that against the company. What people choose to watch is in their own power.
Information retrieved from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1321870/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Video retrieved from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rwiBKhAI_o
Warner Brothers: A family tradition 