This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

According to a report in today's NY Times, Paramount Vantage is delaying the release of its adaptation of the Khalid Hosseini novel The Kite Runner until December, an attempt to buy itself some time while it tries to smuggle three child actors involved in "a culturally inflammatory rape scene" out of Kabul, hoping to shield the boys from violent reprisals that could result once the movie opens. Reports the Times on how Paramount is dealing with the unexpectedly complicated extraction and custodial plans stemming from the project:

In an effort to prevent not only a public-relations disaster but also possible violence, studio lawyers and marketing bosses have employed a stranger-than-fiction team of consultants. In August they sent a retired Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorism operative in the region to Kabul to assess the dangers facing the child actors. And on Sunday a Washington-based political adviser flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange a safe haven for the boys and their relatives.

"If we're being overly cautious, that's O.K.," Karen Magid, a lawyer for Paramount, said. "We're in uncharted territory."

In interviews, more than a dozen people involved in the studio's response described grappling with vexing questions: testing the limits of corporate responsibility, wondering who was exploiting whom and pondering the price of on-screen authenticity. [...]

So on Sunday Rich Klein, a Middle East specialist at the consulting firm Kissinger McLarty Associates, flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange visas, housing and schooling for the young actors and jobs for their guardians. (The United States is not an option, he said, because Afghans do not qualify for refugee status.)

Those involved say that the studio doesn't want to be taken advantage of, but that it could accept responsibility for the boys' living expenses until they reach adulthood, a cost some estimated at up to $500,000. The families, of course, must first agree to the plan.

While we're sure that Paramount will take its responsibility for ensuring the safety of its young stars as seriously as a joint committee of their public relations and legal departments tells them to, the realization that they might have to pay for the boys' upbringing for years has surely frustrated the forward-thinking executive who long ago suggested that the production's dedication to authenticity was fiscal insanity; he'll be unbearably smug in the coming weeks, reminding everyone within earshot about how he wanted to shoot the entire movie in the safety of a Van Nuys soundstage with "ethnic enough" kids from Reseda, and replace that controversial, violence-inciting rape scene with a relatively harmless spanking.