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CORRECTED: Theater pulls 50 Cent's movie

Posted on: Friday, 11 November 2005, 18:05 CST

(corrects day)

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A man was shot to death in the lobby of a movie house where gangsta rapper 50 Cent's movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin"' had just played, 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 Wednesday 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.

Source: REUTERS

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