Hollywood puts box office on mute after shootings; studios join Warner Bros. on silent weekend

By Abbey Westbury
July 21 2012 12:23 PM

CP19482332 — Cars remain in the parking lot of the Century 16 movie theater, late Friday, July 20, 2012, in Aurora, Colo., nearly 24 hours after a gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens of others watching the latest Batman film in one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Hollywood studios are aligning in a rare show of solidarity to give their weekend box-office reporting a rest because of the shootings in Colorado at a screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Sony, Fox, Disney and Universal said Saturday that they are joining “Dark Knight Rises” distributor Warner Bros. in withholding their box-office numbers for the weekend.

Warner announced Friday that it would forgo the usual revenue reports until Monday out of respect for the victims and their families in the shooting that killed 12 and wounded 58 at the midnight show earlier in the day.

Sunday box-office estimates are a weekly routine for Hollywood, with studios jostling for bragging rights as the No. 1 movie and always aiming to break revenue records.

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