Posted on 07/08/2005 9:27:05 PM PDT by doug from upland
Nicolas Cage to star in upcoming 9/11 movie Fri Jul 8, 2005 7:50 PM ET
By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Nicolas Cage will star as a real-life policeman who survived the collapse of the World Trade Center in what would be one of Hollywood's first films to dramatize the Sept. 11 attacks on America, Paramount Pictures said on Friday.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone is on board to direct the untitled movie, which centers on the story of the last two men -- a pair of Port Authority police officers -- rescued from the rubble of the twin towers, Paramount said.
The two officers, Sgt. John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, sold their life rights to the studio, providing the basis for the original screenplay by relative newcomer Andrea Berloff.
Cage, who won an Academy Award for "Leaving Las Vegas," will play McLoughlin. No other casting decisions have been made, Paramount said.
The Viacom Inc.-owned studio has given producers the go-ahead to begin work on the film, getting an apparent leg up on another 9/11 feature in development at rival studio Columbia Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp.
Columbia announced in February it had optioned screen rights to "102 Minutes," a book by two New York Times reporters chronicling the interval between the crash of the first hijacked airliner into the World Trade Center and the collapse of the first tower.
No director or actors have been signed to the "102 Minutes" project, but Columbia has received a first script draft by Billy Ray, the writer and director behind "Shattered Glass," according to Hollywood trade paper Daily Variety.
Word that Paramount had a film in the works dramatizing the 9/11 attacks came a day after London was rocked by a series of deadly bomb blasts that renewed anxieties about terror threats. A studio insider said the timing of its announcement was less than "ideal," precipitated only because Variety broke the story in its Friday edition.
The fact that at least two major studios have embraced the subject of 9/11 marks a huge shift in Hollywood's attitude toward depiction of the suicide hijackings that claimed nearly 3,000 lives and prompted the U.S. global war on terrorism.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, studios and broadcasters steered clear of any themes considered evocative of the tragedy. The trend has gradually swung the other way.
Until now, stories about 9/11 have remained the province of film and TV documentaries, television dramas, or in big-screen fiction like Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" featuring 9/11-like imagery.
ABC is planning a miniseries drama based on the "9/11 Commission Report," the best-selling official government account of events surrounding the attacks. NBC recently pulled the plug on a similar project.
He didn't start out with talent. He was just lucky enough--by birth--to be able to "go to school" in the business. Did you see the boy in "Peggy Sue Got Married"? GACK!!!
Until we treat Mr. Stone et al. like the domestic enemies they are, we shall not win victory in the WoT.
I would love to see a "family tree" of Hollywoodies. Talk about a tree with no branches!
LOL! I was sure I said something there...
?
http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~aneeshk/miniWeb/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040419-610048,00.html
'YOU'RE MR. CONSPIRACY. DO YOU THINK PRESIDENT BUSH KNEW ABOUT 9/11 BEFORE IT HAPPENED?
No, I don't particularly think so. I think they were taken off guard. It's probably somewhat as Richard Clarke has portrayed it.
YOU WENT TO YALE. SO DID GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN KERRY. ANY CHANCE FOR A CLASS REUNION?
I knew Kerry a little bit at Yale. We all looked up to him. He was head of the political union, and he was almost presidential material then. He looked like Abraham Lincoln.
snip
HOW DIFFICULT IS IT TODAY FOR A LIBERAL FILMMAKER TO FIND BACKING?
It's impossible. There's a decision, a consensus, that a certain kind of movie "will not work." I'll always feel that you can take the most boring subject and make it gripping. JFK was gripping, love it or hate it. People weren't thinking about J.F.K. at that point; he was off the books. At worst, the movie opened up the debate.
WOULD YOU EVER DO A BIOPIC ABOUT THE BUSH FAMILY?
If I tried to do something like that, I would get so pounded before I even got a foot of film shot. I don't know if there's room enough on my back for the scars.'
From the Apr. 19, 2004 issue of TIME magazine
I really like Nicolas Cage -- he's very attractive and talented -- but under the direction of Oliver Stone this movie will be extremely slanted. Oliver Stone seems to hate the U.S. and his movie will no doubt be as kooky as he is.
Not sure if this is the new movie but this is a new poster that is making the rounds...
Pray for W and Our Amazing Troops
And Nick Cage is a hack. The only reason I have any respect for him is because he got a face full of Elisabeth Shue's ya-yas in Leaving Las Vegas.
Hollywood ... what a creative vacuum. Where is Gary Cooper when we need him?
I can only imagine how they'll portray it.
If Oliver Stone is involved I will have to pass.
Here's a li'l refresher link concerning Stone's last box office triumph...
http://alexanderthemovie.warnerbros.com/
'Nuff said.
If its going to blow as much as Alexander, he should be shot for what he did to Alexander...sure he may have been Bisexual but come on focus more on the tactics...2 BATTLE SCENES IN THE WHOLE MOVIE GOOD LORD...and 2 hours and 30 minutes of Angelina Jolie B!tching about her husband.
This article had me intrigued until I got to the name of Oliver Stone.
I love Nicholas Cage as a policeman, 9/11, survivors, all that, then enter Oliver Stone and it's a given that it'll have Cage as remorseful for surviving, a moment where he has an epitome and realizes that HE, as an AMERICAN, is to BLAME and that he'll fall to his knees beside body parts on a Manhattan Street, yelling, 'WHY, WHY, WHYYYYY...' then pick up a tattered American flag and wipe his sweaty, tear-stained face with it, while being embraced by fearful Muslims, crying out, "please, puuhhleazze protect us from the lynch mobs!"...
developing...bad movie.
How about that Mel Gibson?
Being from the Hollywood crowd should one be surprised by his wanton personal directive?
No wonder it was the prime target of the Japanese in the movie "1941".
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