US theater pulls 50 Cent’s movie after murder

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A man was shot to death in a
cinema lobby shootout after watching gangsta rapper 50 Cent’s
movie “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” prompting the theater near
Pittsburgh to stop showing the film, police said on Friday.

The audience for the highly publicized movie had just
spilled into the lobby of the Loews Cineplex at the Waterfront
in West Homestead near Pittsburgh on Thursday evening when
shots were fired during an argument between four customers,
said West Homestead Police Department spokesman Jerald Berger.

Shelton Flowers, 30, of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, was shot
three times and died later at a local hospital, Berger said.
Flowers and one other person fired the shots, but police have
no suspects yet.

Flowers was carrying an unregistered gun without a permit,
Berger said. The victim had a criminal record, the officer
added without giving details.

John McCauley, a spokesman for privately held Loews, said
the movie was pulled in that location only as a precaution and
that it was unclear whether the shooting was linked to any
violence portrayed in the movie.

“We don’t see a direct correlation,” McCauley said, adding
that it was not yet known whether those involved in the
shooting had come out of that movie or another one.

Berger said just one police officer was on duty at the
theater at the time because information from the film’s
distributors had indicated that it did not provoke violent
reactions from audiences elsewhere.

Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., removed
billboards for the movie near some schools after Los Angeles
area community leaders complained last month they glorified
violence.

The R-rated movie is based on Curtis “50-Cent” Jackson’s
own life which includes drug dealing, time in prison, and
getting shot nine times.

It opened on Wednesday at 1,652 theaters across the United
States.