Director Quentin Tarantino poses for a portrait while
promoting his movie 'Django Unchained' in New York.
REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
The premiere for Quentin Tarantino's latest film "Django
Unchained," a violent spaghetti Western slave revenge tale, has
been cancelled in the wake of the school shooting in
Connecticut last week, the film's studio said.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the
tragedy in Newtown, CT and in this time of national mourning
we have decided to forgo our scheduled event. However, we
will be holding a private screening for the cast and crew and
their friends and families," a spokesperson for The Weinstein
Company said in a statement.
Tuesday's (local time) premiere in Los Angeles was scheduled
to have a red carpet and party, but instead will be a private
screening with no media coverage.
The film, which won five Golden Globe nominations last week,
stars Jamie Foxx as a slave turned bounty hunter who wreaks
revenge on slave plantation owners as he tries to rescue his
wife.
It features Tarantino's trademark style of extensive graphic
and bloody violence, along with dark humor, and is due to be
released in U.S. movie theaters on Christmas Day.
A source at the privately held Weinstein Company told Reuters
the cancellation was unrelated to the violence depicted in
the movie.
Paramount Pictures canceled a weekend premiere for Tom
Cruise's new movie "Jack Reacher" and New York's Lincoln
Center Film Society postponed a Monday screening and talk
with Cruise out of respect for the Newtown families.
A total of 27 people, 20 of them young children, died in
Friday's shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut by a lone
gunman, who then killed himself.
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