= google8f5ee720693b5c31.html> PhatFlix: Will Trayvon Martin tragedy effect "Neighborhood Watch" box office sales?

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Will Trayvon Martin tragedy effect "Neighborhood Watch" box office sales?

Will the Trayvon Martin tragedy effect the box office sales of the new movie "Neighborhood Watch" starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill?

The comedy centers around a bunch of suburban dads who form a neighborhood watch group to get time away from their families, only to discover a plot to destroy Earth

The film's trailer shows a van full of white men driving slowly through a residential neighborhood as Jonah Hill's character mimics a gun with his fingers out the mini van's window. All this is in slow motion using a slow Hip Hop beat as a sound track.

Will contemporary events in the news like the Trayvon Martin or Sean Bell tragedies cause the trailer or film to be edited to show more "sensitivity"?

Films have been changed before. "Return Of The Jedi" was supposed to be billed as "Revenge Of The Jedi" and was changed at almost the last minute because revenge is an emotion unbecoming of a Jedi, sending the wrong message.

The film also stars Richard Ayode (The I.T. Crowd) and was written by Seth Rogan Evan Goldberg. Akiva Schaffer directs. Opens in July.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

What would you change it to?

It's sort of lose-lose here. If in the movie the guys had set up a neighborhood watch for traditional neighborhood watch purposes, you have the Trayvon Martin connotation. But the watch is set up to kill aliens thereby saving their world and their families. Sounds eerily like Arizona or Alabama. Wait....where is the movie set? Because if it's in one of those immigrant-hatin states, there will be problemas.