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ROME -- In its first European outing "Death of a President" is triggering turmoil in Italy where about 30% of the mockumentary's bookings have been pulled ahead of its March 16 release, just as many of the pic's controversial posters are being torn down.

Distributor Lucky Red topper Andrea Occhipinti says that following negative press reaction to U.K. helmer Gabriel Range's fictional account of George W. Bush's assassination the number of prints planned for released has shrunk to 70 from an originally planned 100 due to cancellations from exhibbers "who said they didn't want trouble."

Occhipinti also told Daily Variety that nearly one-third of the 2,000 promotional posters plastered around Rome showing a fictional George W. Bush tombstone have been removed "either by people who want them as collector's items or as a form of protest," he said.

Most exhibitor cancellations came from single-screen sites, many in Piedmont where Turin newspaper La Stampa slammed Lucky Red for opening "Death" on the same day former Italo premier Aldo Moro was kidnapped -- and subsequently killed -- by Red Brigades terrorists in 1978. Occhipinti said the coincidence was entirely unintentional.

In the U.S. "Death of a President" went out in October on 100 prints via Newmarket, and flopped, after Regal Entertainment Group and the Cinemark chain refused to play it citing its touchy subject matter.

"Shooting Silvio," a similarly themed pic by first-time helmer Berardo Carboni, about a man obsessed with killing former Italo premier Silvio Berlusconi, is currently on micro-release in Italy.