Dark Knight stars cancel French promotion after Colorado cinema massacre

The stars of The Dark Knight Rises have cancelled interviews and appearances to promote the latest Batman film in France ahead of its release here Wednesday. The première in Paris on Friday was cancelled. French President François Hollande said he was “deeply shocked” by Friday's US cinema shooting that left 12 dead and 58 wounded.

Reuters/Jeremy Papasso

French actress Marion Cotillard and US actor Morgan Freeman cancelled an interview with TF1 television Friday as news of the massacre came through and media report that all appearances have been cancelled.

Journalists waiting for the stars at the luxury Hotel Bristol were asked to leave the premises.

Stars of The Dark Knight Rises, including Cotillard, Freeman, Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway, had been due to attend the première at a cinema on Paris’s Champs Elysées.

But the cinema’s management announced on Facebook that the showing had been cancelled.

In a statement, French President François Hollande said he was “deeply shocked by the shooting”, adding that he “realises how much this dramatic incident upsets the American youth, plunging America into grief”.

France stands by the US government and people “in these tragic circumstances”, the statement said.

Police in Aurora, Colorado, where the killings took place, said they would try to enter gunman James Holmes’s booby-strapped apartment again after a first attempt on Friday.

Holmes, who bought more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition online and four guns in shops in the two months that preceded the shootings, has placed trip wires, jars of ammunition and jars of liquid inside the flat.

Late Friday residents gathered for two vigils, one at midnight, to honour the victims.

Six of the wounded are children and three members of the US military.

US President Barack Obama has ordered flags to fly at half-mast for six days.

The shootings, that took place about 32 kilometres from the scene of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, have relaunched the debate over gun control in the US.