ANTI-RACIST campaigners today backed calls to boycott Vue Cinemas in response to the chain’s decision to pull gangland film Blue Story.

Vue’s decision came after violence broke out among 100 teenagers, some holding machetes, in the foyer of a Birmingham cinema on Sunday afternoon.

The chain pinned the brawl on Blue Story, which was being screened at the same time, despite police reporting that the cause of the violence was not yet known.

Showcase Cinemas followed suit and pulled the south-London based film today.

The move was widely condemned on Twitter with users branding the decision “racist.”  

Entrepreneur William Adoasi changed his Twitter handle to #NoBlueNoVue in a bid to pressure the chain to reinstate the film.

He also highlighted that a mass shooting in 2012 at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in the US did not result in the Batman film being pulled.

Mr Adoasi’s call was shared by Stand up to Racism’s Weyman Bennett who described the decision as a “ludicrous response.”

He told the Star: “I honestly believe that if it didn’t have an all-black cast, they wouldn’t have banned it.

“It’s like the banning of grime music before and drill music now — we can’t accept it.

“You can’t generalise from one incident a decision that will affect the whole country.”

Green Party black and ethnic minority spokesman Rashid Nix said Vue’s decision reflects how people of colour are treated in society.

But he also stressed the need for greater diversity in black films, with portrayals of black youth too often “packaged around gangs.”

“Black kids who are doing the right thing are being ignored because they don’t fit this gang stereotype,” he told the Star.