CBS POSTPONES SHOWING OF 'DEAL'

L.A. Times Archives

Nov. 28, 1986 12 AM PT

<i> From Associated Press </i>

NEW YORK — CBS has postponed a satirical movie scheduled for next week because it is about international arms sales and too similar to recent news events, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The movie, “Deal of the Century,” starring Chevy Chase, is a satire about arms merchants who run into difficulties in South America.

CBS spokeswoman Anne Luzzato said the movie, set for Tuesday night, was postponed “because of recent news events”--the controversy over the Reagan administration’s sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits to Nicaraguan contras .

It is being replaced by another movie, “Risky Business.”

Jeffrey A. Bernstein, a spokesman for Warner Brothers, which produced “Deal of the Century,” said the postponement “wasn’t for any political reason. ‘Deal of the Century’ is a comedy. They thought it might not go over too well.”

The network’s ads for the movie in TV Guide said: “They could pull off the arms deal of the century if it didn’t explode in their faces.”