‘Runner’ boys get time to flee

The father of a 12-year-old Afghan boy starring in “The Kite Runner” said the company producing the movie had delayed its release until both of them can leave the country, fearing for the actor’s safety.

The studio distributing the movie, Paramount Vantage, said Thursday it was postponing the movie’s release to give three of its child actors the chance to leave Kabul out of concern they could be attacked over a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

“The Kite Runner,” based on the 2003 bestselling novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini, tells the story of two boys and the transformation of their relationship through that act of violence.

“The Kite Runner” was originally scheduled for U.S. release Nov. 2, and now will be released Dec. 14.

Paramount Vantage has “promised us that they will solve whatever problem that we have now or we might have in the future,” said Ahmad Jaan Mahmidzada, whose 12-year-old son Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada plays one of the boys.

Mahmidzada worries the story will stir ethnic tensions because it plays on stereotypes of Afghan ethnic groups, pitting a Pashtun bully against a lower-class ethnic Hazara boy.

A studio spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that after their school year ends Dec. 6, the three boys would be brought to the United States with guardians for a visit lasting a few weeks, before relocating, perhaps in the United Arab Emirates.