The Most Poorly Timed Film Releases in History..

[GreatGazoo]

The movie "Space Camp," about a group of school kids accidentally launched into space, was waiting for its premiere when the Challenger space shuttle disaster happened on Jan 26, 1986.

"Marooned" was the 1969 film about a moon mission which goes wrong and strands astronauts. Released Nov 10, 1969, it was running in some theaters in April of 1970 when Apollo 13 was jeopardized by the explosion of oxygen tanks. The incident gave birth to the phrase "Houston, we have a problem."

In 2012 the trailer for "Gangster Squad" was pulled from theaters after the Aurora Batman massacre. The trailer depicts men with machine guns behind the movie screen and then shooting the audience.

"Neighborhood Watch" (2012) with Ben Stiller and Jonah Hill. Plot: a group of “suburban dads form a neighborhood-watch group to get time away from their families. The trailer featured the fictitious neighborhood-watch members making gun motions with their hands at groups of teens from a surveillance minivan. Promotion for the film's release was set to begin during the time of the Trayvon Martin murder.

Hereafter (2011) - Clint Eastwood's film opened with a recreation of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. It was due to open in Japan when Japan experienced a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.

Phone Booth (2003) Colin Farrel plays a publicist who is forced by sniper Kiefferr Sutherland to submit to mind games. Scheduled to open Nov 15, 2002, the film ran into the DC Snipers terrorist attacks in October of 2002. It's opening was then delayed to April 2003.

"The China Syndrome" about the melt down of a nuclear reactor was released to theaters March 16, 1979. Twelve days later the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island occurred.

Many more here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/15/clint-eastwoods-hereafter-pulled-after-tsunami-more-ill-timed-films.html

[SoCalDem]

1. Agree on all BUT "The China Syndrome"

That movie helped shine a light on just how dangerous nuclear energy is..

[Warpy]

2. Pregnant and nursing mothers in New England were told to stop drinking milk for a while

so people up there sort of knew how dangerous nuclear power plants were.

Fukushima finally nailed it all down for a lot of fence sitters and that one hasn't even fully unfolded yet.

[csziggy]

4. It was timely - but for some too timely

What I found odd was that not only did "The China Syndrome" come out just before Three Mile Island, National Geographic's April 1979 issue had a special article "The Promise and Peril of Nuclear Energy" which explained some of the real dangers in ways average people could understand. That article had to have been written before TMI - though maybe it was written to help people understand what was going on in "The China Syndrome."

[GreatGazoo]

6. I think I see what you mean. In some of these the timing

makes it seem as if the film is trying to make light of, or make money off of, tragedies.

But China Syndrome, as a serious film with a serious warning, was timely and not callous, if awkwardly so.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Additionally, the timing made the film much more sucessful and widely seen

nt

[Odin2005]

11. No, it lead to a technophobic hysteria that killed off one of the cleanest energy sources there is.

Anti-Nuclear is Pro-Coal.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. TMI happened the day after I saw The China Syndrome. n/t

[joeybee12]

5. The original Manchurain Candidate...

A classic, but released too close to JFK's assisnation...Angela Lansbury would have won an Oscar, IMHO, if it had been released at a different time.

[MrScorpio]

9. Not to mention this scene in "Dr. Strangelove…"

Originally Major Kong said that a fella could have a pretty good weekend in DALLAS with all that stuff, but this came out just after JFK was slain there and they overdubbed it to have him say "Vegas" instead.

[joeybee12]

10. I'd forgotten about that one, too...

thanks

[bluesbassman]

8. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas was released on a day that ended in a "Y"...

They tried everything to get around that, but like the movie itself they failed.

[Rstrstx]

12. Swordfish, 2001

Dealt with terrorism and had lots of disturbing graphic deaths and violence. Released a couple of months before 9/11. It was also just a bad movie.