It was announced by Variety on Monday that because of the events that occurred in Texas last week, the upcoming drama Shooter, that was scheduled to premiere on the USA network next week, has been delayed intentionally.
A spokesperson for the network said, “In light of recent tragic events and out of respect for the victims, their families and our viewers, we have decided to postpone the premiere date for the upcoming USA Network series ‘Shooter,’ to July 26.”
The network had originally slated the series to premiere July 19 but will now be pushed back by a week.
The series stars Ryan Phillippe as a veteran who specialized as a sniper and has now been wrongly accused of a crime. This military veteran then has to try to clear his name.
Based on the 2007 movie starring Mark Wahlberg, Shooter was originally based on Stephen Hunter’s bestselling novel Point of Impact.
Paramount Television and Universal Cable Productions produce the series. Executive producing the show are Phillipe, Wahlberg, Stephen Levinson, from Leverage Entertainment as well as Lorenzo di Bonaventura. The pilot was written by John Hlavin who is also an executive producer and Simon Cellan Jones is credited with directing the pilot.
Although the series was due to premiere next week, the network decided to push the premiere date out another week. The announcement to push the premiere comes after police officers were targeted at a protest in Texas. The protest focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and police brutality recently seen across media outlets. While peacefully organized, police officers were targeted and ruthlessly killed by a military veteran sniper in Dallas while eight other police officers were injured. The protest was sparked by the fatal police shootings of African-American men in Baton Rouge, La. and Falcon Heights, Minn.
Others casted in the drama include Cynthia Assai-Robinson, Shantel Vansanten, Eddie McClintock, Omar Epps and of course, Ryan Phillipe as Bob Lee Swagger.
Do you think this is a good move on USA’s part because of the recent police violence?
Let us know in the comments.