Idris Elba's Bastille Day movie pulled from French cinemas

The distributor of Idris Elba's new movie Bastille Day has asked French cinemas to pull the action thriller following the attack in Nice.

Executives at Studiocanal originally pulled advertising for the film and gave cinema owners the option to drop it from their schedule after at least 84 people were killed after a lorry plowed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, France on Thursday (14Jul16).

However, they asked cinema bosses around France to pull it completely on Saturday (16Jul16), as the nation began its three-day period of mourning.

Jocelyn Bouyssy, the director of CGR cinemas in France, which began showing the film on Wednesday (13Jul16), told Variety.com they had originally decided to keep showing the film when the option to pull it was given, but she has since complied with Studiocanal's request “out of respect".

"We decided to keep it (originally) because we haven’t received any complaints," she said. "The film’s narrative is very different from the attack that happened in Nice, and we’re showing many films with violence of all kinds... If we start pulling violent movies because they show this or that we’re basically giving in. We must be strong and keep on living.”

In the movie, which was released in the U.K. in April (16), Idris stars as a former CIA agent who teams up with a pickpocket, played by Game of Thrones actor Richard Madden, to stop a terrorism mission. The film begins with a bomb exploding in a public area after a terror plot goes wrong, so it was first postponed from release last year (15) following the attacks in Paris, France in November (15).

Due to the Bastille Day tragedy, Rihanna canceled her concert in Nice set for the following night, and the Nice Jazz Festival was also scrapped. Production on the Fifty Shades of Grey sequel, Fifty Shades Freed, was taking place in the city but producer Dana Brunetti assured fans everyone was safe.