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There's even more punch pulling going on behind the scenes. Warner Bros. has turned down a chance to be a partner with Disney on Gangs of New York, a Martin Scorsese-Leonardo DiCaprio historical drama in development, in part because of its violent subject matter, sources close to the production say. (Warner Bros. declined comment.) And Disney executive vice president Rob Moore told TIME that the studio will proceed with the movie only if the script's violence is toned down. Sony has been in angst mode for months over its Jeff Bridges-Tim Robbins movie Arlington Road. The paranoia-fueled tale of a man who thinks his next-door neighbors are terrorists, scheduled for release on May 14, was bumped back to July 9 largely because of Columbine, says a marketing source close to the studio. Sony denies it, saying it was just trying to avoid entering a box-office Pod race with The Phantom Menace. Then there's Fight Club, a bare-knuckle-boxing drama starring Brad Pitt that's been roundhoused from its planned Aug. 6 release date and moved to the fall. Fox says the film needs more editing and would face too much competition, but there's no doubt that a little more distance from the Littleton shootings cannot hurt.
Disney Studios chairman Joe Roth says the climate is affecting production of projects like Gone in 60 Seconds, a Nicolas Cage car-theft action pic being made by Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of bone crunchers like Con Air and The Rock. Bruckheimer "is being careful that it's not overly violent, that there's enough humor in it, and there's a dramatic and clear moral message," says Roth. "We didn't not make the picture, but there's more conversation about its specific content."
If nothing else, a title change can help. Miramax was planning to go with Killing Mrs. Tingle, a dark teen comedy about a student's plot to get revenge on her teacher for a bad grade. But after a teacher was killed in Littleton, the studio renamed it Teaching Mrs. Tingle, and it's being billed as more of a lighthearted kidnapping-and-physical-abuse caper. Forrest Gump producer Wendy Finerman has expressed qualms, insiders say, about the violent content in Sugar and Spice and Semiautomatics, in which a high school cheerleader becomes pregnant with the star quarterback's child and turns to crime to support herself. The film has been retitled simply Sugar and Spice. And an Ellen Barkin comedy originally called Crime and Punishment in High School is now in production under the not quite so catchy name Untitled '99.
Movie marketing departments are also toning down their act, keeping guns out of the advertising artwork and playing down violence. "We're thinking about it up front at the sketch stage, long before we execute," says Tony Seiniger, whose Beverly Hills ad firm does work for several top studios. He says his clients are thinking hard about whether actors who are popular with kids should pose with weapons. "Everybody's aware that there's a definite responsibility, the same way we don't have people smoking in ads anymore."