Jaws screening scrapped in wake of Australian great white shark attack

Channel 9 in Australia has cancelled a screening of Jaws that was set to air one day after the tragic fatal encounter with a suspected great white in Sydney.

Quite rightly the Channel has cancelled the screening as it would have seemed in poor taste by many after the attack, which was the first shark fatality in the area for almost 60 years.

It's not an uncommon occurrence, with the likes of ITV in the UK pulling a planned screening of the Timothy Dalton James Bond film Licence To Kill after the Dunblane School massacre in 1996.

A similar fate befell the theatrical release of Teaching Mrs Tingle in the US, it was originally titled Killing Mrs Tingle but the Columbine High School shootings pushed back its release and changed its title.

September 11th 2001 impacted many releases and programmes, including a bomb on a plane plot for 24, which was edited back, a totally new ending for Men In Black II which originally saw the destruction of The World Trade Center and the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Collateral Damage, which was to release in October 2001, saw a terrorist bomb kill Arnold's wife and kid. Arnie kicks ass when the US fails to take action. The film was pushed to February 2002.

Meanwhile, the UK cinematic release of The Good Son, starring Home Alone actor Macaulay Culkin, was cancelled completely after the real-life tragic murder of the toddler, Jamie Bulger.