Tom Hardy fans in Russia will not be able to see his latest movie, Child 44, unless the film’s distributor there can win an appeal. The film, which centers on a serial killer in Soviet-era Russia, was supposed to be released in Russia this weekend, but was suddenly pulled from release.
Russia’s culture ministry called the fictional film “historically inaccurate” when explaining its decision, reports The Guardian. The film’s Russian distributor, Central Film Partnership, agreed to pull the film from release, even stating that it was “accepting all commercial consequences of this decision.”
“The Russian ministry of culture received questions about the contents of the film, particularly the distortion of historical facts and the interpretation of events before, during and after the Great Patriotic War [the second world war], as well as the character and spirit of Soviet citizens of this historical period,” the statement continued.
However, Deadline is now reporting that Central Film is going to appeal the ban. It’s not clear if they are going to edit it to please censors in order to release the film.
Child 44 is being released by Lionsgate in the U.S. this weekend. It stars Hardy as an officer investigating a serial killer while Josef Stalin is in power. Noomi Rapace, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Joel Kinnaman and Vincent Cassel co-star. Ridley Scott’s Scott Free produced the movie.
While the film is fictional, British novelist Tom Rob Smith has said that it was partly inspired by the case of murderer Andrei Chikatilo, whose killings happened years after the time Child 44 is set in.
image courtesy of Roger Wong/INFphoto.com