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.
Welll, how ABOUT him?!? Ha.
Oh, I just realized you meant (did you?) that Mel Gibson should make a film about 9/11? And star in it?
Well, ask him.
Oliver Stone...on the other hand...I think everyone knows what he'll create, and it'll be really, really, well, tipsy.
How about Angelina Jolie's awful accent?
Considering how badly Stone managed to bungle that one, the fact that TPTB are still allowing him to direct their big budget pictures is disturbing.
I too like Nicholas Cage. I remember one of his first ones "Valley Girl". He was very good in "Leaving Las Vegas" as was Elisabeth Shue. He was very funny when his new 22year old wife said some stupid things. She's a Korean waitress he met in a sushi joint.
Oliver Stone? I'll pass.
And Hillary picking through the rubble pulling out survivors. Ick.
Stone will have the President hiding under a desk in that Florida classroom where Andy Card gave him the news.
With Oliver Stone producing this movie, it will be just another in a long line of his deceptive pieces of purported history. Hollyweird doesn't get it yet. Certainly Oliver Stone doesn't.
Forget "blood for oil". With this movie, we'll be getting "blood for theater tickets"!
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