Studio acts to shield child stars of "Kite Runner"

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The studio behind "The Kite Runner," a film about Afghanistan's turmoil, has arranged to get its three young stars out of their homeland before the movie debuts to protect them from a possible violent backlash.

The U.S. release of the film, based on the best-selling novel by Khaled Hosseini, has been delayed by six weeks to December 14 to ensure the 12-year-old Afghan boys are out of harm's way by then, an executive for Paramount Vantage said on Thursday.

The extraordinary precautions follow months of shuttle diplomacy and other preparations by the film studio to address concerns about the film's depiction of one boy's rape and other scenes of conflict between rival Pashtun and Hazara tribes.

Worries about the well-being of the young actors have escalated as the level of security in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the months since the film was cast and shot, said Megan Colligan, a marketing chief for Paramount Vantage.

Although opinions as to the film's potential for inciting ethnic violence vary widely, "we feel an obligation to put the safety and security of those kids first," she told Reuters.

The studio, a division of Viacom Inc.-owned Paramount Pictures, hired a former CIA officer to assess the risks facing the child stars while enlisting a human rights worker to serve as their "minder" and liaison between the studio and their families.

"The consensus was we should take them out of the country until this blows over," said John Kiriakou, the ex-CIA counterterrorism operative, who interviewed about two dozen Afghan politicians and others on behalf of the studio.

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