Los Angeles - The release of the movie version of the bestselling novel The Kite Runner is being delayed to protect young Afghan actors who star in the searing portrait of life in Afghanistan, the New York Times reported Thursday.
The report said Paramount Vantage, the distributor of the movie, made the decision to delayed the release by six weeks to allow time for the film's three schoolboy stars to leave Kabul with their families.
The move comes after increasing concerns about how the movie will impact the increasingly-turbulent country. The film is based on the book by Afghan author Khaled Hosseini.
It depicts life in Afghanistan from before the Soviet invasion in the 1970s to its years under Taliban rule. The central scene depicts a brutal rape that determines the lives of the three main characters, and experts fear it could trigger violence between Pashtun and Hazari groups and make the actors a target for attack.
Representatives of the child actors have accused Paramount of endangering the children and failing to inform them in advance about the rape scene. Paramount denies the charges.
The movie will now hit screens December 14, six weeks later than scheduled.
In the interim, Paramount will move the schoolboy stars and their families to the United Arab Emirates, and arrange visas, housing and schooling for the young actors and jobs for their guardians. The report said that the film would accept responsibility for the boys' living expenses until they reach adulthood, a cost some estimated at up to 500,000 dollars.
'If we're being overly cautious, that's OK,' Karen Magid, a lawyer for Paramount, told the paper. 'We're in uncharted territory.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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