Christopher Nolan, Batman director, devastated by Colorado shootings

GlobalPost

Christopher Nolan, director of Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises," expressed "profound sorrow" over the mass shooting of cinema patrons in Colorado on Friday.

"The movie theater is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me," he said in a statement issued on behalf of the cast and crew, cited by Fox News.

Twelve people were killed and more than 50 injured after 24-year-old James Holmes attacked the midnight premiere of The Dark Night Rises in Aurora, a suburb in Denver.

"Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them and their families," Nolan's statement continued.

The director was in Paris, where he was due to attend the star-studded French premiere of the third of his Batman trilogy, according to ABC News, along with Hollywood actors Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Morgan Freeman and French actress Marion Cotillard.

However, the screening — was canceled, along with publicity interviews.

More from GlobalPost: Paris cancels Batman premiere over Colorado shootings

Meanwhile, Warner Bros, the studio behind the Batman film, pulled a trailer that was showing before "The Dark Knight Rises" due to a scene where cinema-goers are shot, MSNBC reported.

The company is in the process of removing the trailer from the film "Gangster Squad," which features four men shooting up a movie theater with automatic weapons, from showing in cinemas throughout the US.

The studio announced it would not publish the weekend's box office takings out of respect to the shooting victims, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Other Hollywood studios are promising to do the same.

Holmes, an honors student and Ph.D. candidate at an Aurora college, according to ABC News, entered the cinema via an emergency exit on Friday and indiscriminately shot at those attending the midnight screening, many of them children in costume.

He was arrested by local police not long after the attack.

More from GlobalPost: Batman shooting: 12 killed at 'Dark Knight Rises' movie in Colorado
 

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