ROME, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Global entertainment giant

Disney ( DIS ) has been forced to cancel the release this month

of a TV crime series set in Italy after a mayor successfully

complained to a court that the show gave his small town a bad

name.

"Avetrana - This is not Hollywood", a fictionalised account

of the 2010 murder of a 15-year-old girl by her family members

and of the media frenzy that surrounded the case, was due to air

on Oct. 25 on the Disney+ streaming channel.

Disney ( DIS ), acting as distributor, said in a joint statement on

Thursday with producers Groenlandia that the launch of the

series had been postponed following an order from a court in

Taranto, southern Italy.

Disney ( DIS ) and Groenlandia said they would challenge the

decision.

The court suspended the series on Wednesday, provisionally

accepting an appeal from Avetrana Mayor Antonio Iazzi. It

scheduled a Nov. 5 hearing to adjudicate more fully on the

affair.

Avetrana is a town of less than 7,000 residents in the

Puglia region in Italy's deep south. Iazzi says he took legal

action because his community is tired of being associated with

the gruesome killing.

The municipality wants the TV series to change its name to

avoid giving the idea that Avetrana is a community marked by

crime, backwardness and omerta, the mafia-style code of silence,

the mayor said in a statement.

Italian producers' association APA and the country's film

and TV industry group ANICA criticized the court decision as

setting a dangerous precedent against artistic freedom.

"The preventive blocking of the series, still unreleased,

appears to be a serious violation of the principle of freedom of

expression clearly protected also at constitutional level," APA

President Chiara Sbarigia said.