San Andreas – and five more badly timed films

San Andreas, a disaster movie about an earthquake in California, will be released as planned this month, but marketing plans will be revised in the wake of the real-life disaster in Nepal.

A spokesperson for Warner Brothers, which made the film, said the studio wanted to ensure it was sensitive to people affected by the Nepal tragedy, which has killed more than 5,000 people, reports The Guardian.

Until recently, advertising for the film had shown Los Angeles and San Francisco landmarks crumbling and wreckage flying towards crowds. But future promotional material will include information on how to help the relief efforts in Nepal and advice on preparing for natural disasters.

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San Andreas is far from the first film to have fallen foul of real-life events.

In fact, Universal Pictures may also have to revise its plans for another film, Everest, in September. The story is based on Jon Krakauer's non-fiction novel Into Thin Air, about the doomed 1996 expedition in which a climbing group was overwhelmed by a severe storm. Given that 19 people were killed on Everest in the recent earthquake, Universal is also considering changes.

The recent history of cinemas is littered with ill-timed movie releases. Here are just a few:

The Men Who Stare at Goats

This comedy starring George Clooney features a disturbed soldier who shoots at troops during morning exercises in Fort Bragg. The film was released in the US on 6 November 2009, a day after Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 29 others at Fort Hood. At that point it was too late to edit the movie.

The Watch

In 2012, 20th Century Fox was forced to pull trailers and ads for its summer comedy starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, about a group of men who form a neighbourhood watch group as a way to get out of their family commitments and find themselves defending the Earth from an alien invasion. The movie was slated for release shortly after the death of unarmed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer.

V for Vendetta

In this Wachowski Brothers' political thriller, based on Alan Moore's graphic novel, an anarchist freedom fighter tries to incite a revolution against a brutal authoritarian regime ruling a dystopian Britain. The film, which features scenes of terrorist attacks in London, was completed shortly before the 7/7 London bombings. The movie was originally set to open on Guy Fawkes Day 2005, but its release was delayed until March 2006.

Phone Booth

This 2002 psychological thriller starring Colin Farrell centres around a sniper attacking New York. On the eve of its release, 20th Century Fox pulled the film after John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo launched a series of sniper attacks across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. It was released five months later.

Sex in the City 2

Production for this 2010 TV spin-off sequel started a in the middle of the worst economic crisis in America since the Great Depression. The film, about a group of vacuous, big spending, New York fashionistas living it up in Abu Dhabi, was considered in poor taste by critics at the time and they gave it a savaging. Nevertheless it made $288.3 million worldwide.