The makers of the Sandy Hook shooting documentary Newtown have joined a boycott of the cinema chain Cinemark over the latter’s treatment of the victims of the 2012 Aurora shootings.

According to Deadline, Newtown was due to screen in over 100 Cinemark theatres – including sites in Los Angeles, Detroit and Ann Arbor – as part of a one-night multi-cinema event on 2 November. (About 400 other cinemas were also booked.) However, Newtown’s directors, Kim Snyder and Maria Cuomo Cole, have withdrawn the film from Cinemark, saying in a statement: “Out of respect for the families of the Aurora victims and with solidarity for the community as a whole, our decision to remove the film from playing in all Cinemark theaters is unequivocal.”



Cinemark, whose cinema in Aurora, Colorado, was the location of the mass shooting by James Holmes during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises that resulted in the death of 12 people, has suffered a backlash after it emerged that it was demanding legal fees of more than $700,000 (£575,000) from plaintiffs who had sued the company for not keeping its customers safe. Calls for a boycott arose, with the hashtag #BoycottCinemark, after the legal action failed and the company was permitted by Colorado law to recover fees from the plaintiffs.

Sandy Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed in Aurora, said she appreciated the Newton film-makers’ actions. “Cinemark really doesn’t get what they are up against. Gun violence victims stand united from coast to coast. We are a force, and we do not waiver. We thank the Newtown filmmakers and love our Sandy Hook family.”

Newtown, which was described by the Guardian’s Lanre Bakare as “a shocking and compelling piece of work”, is a documentary about the mass shooting in 2012 at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in which 20 children aged between 6 and 7 were shot dead as well as six staff members.