In-flight movies took another one on the chin recently with the premier of CASINO ROYALE on British Airways. Airlines often cut the entertainment to remove objectionable content (though for some reason entire objectionable movies like ALONG CAME POLLY and THE REAL MCCAW have managed to make it onto flights I’ve taken); once in a while the material is objectionable to only the airline itself.

This is the circumstance which forced British Airways to remove the cameo of Richard Branson, and the Virgin Airlines logo, from the prints of Casino Royale. It’s odd too when you consider the scenes of carnage on an airport runway that they left in.

“We screen all films before they’re used on our aircraft so that we can control the content of what is displayed,” the spokesman said on condition of anonymity, in line with company policy. “We have full control over what is shown.”

Paul Charles, a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic, said was a shame BA felt the cut was necessary. He said Virgin made no changes to “Die Another Day” a Bond film featuring British Airways, adding his carrier’s policy was not to edit the movies it shows.

Oooooh, SNAP!

BA should consider themselves fortunate that Bond wasn’t seen drinking Virgin Cola, buying a CD at a Virgin Megastore or using the Virgin Dashboard Defibrullator. I wonder how BA felt about DIE ANOTHER DAY, in which the villian was a dashing billionaire modeled on Branson? I need to fly with those guys more often.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:24 am and is filed under Ancilliaries, General, Motion Pictures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.