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World Tr
August 9, 2006
Director: Oliver Stone
Screenwriter: Andrea Berloff
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Hillary Swank, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello
 Review
Nicolas Cage won't be walking the red carpet at the premiere for Oliver Stone's Aug. 9-opening "World Trade Center," nor will he do a publicity sweep on its behalf. He doesn't view the film -- about the final two survivors pulled out of the World Trade Center wreckage after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks -- as entertainment. At least, so says Cage in the August issue of Reader's Digest. He also tells the magazine that he and the rest of Hollywood's much-revered Coppola family don't get together all that often:
"I would like to think of us all at the big table having spaghetti, laughing and listening to the opera, but everyone's off doing their own thing. It's a sad reality -- sort of an American epidemic of family. Now, my wife comes from a Korean family that is so tight-knit. There's an understanding that you will have dinner together, at least once a week. I think it would be more helpful if more American families spent more time together." The 42-year-old Oscar winner concludes that he's more relaxed these days than when he was a younger man, that "I'm not as volatile. I can do a lot more good in this stage than I could in my twenties. There's a grace that comes with age," he observes. "You say the right thing at the right time, as opposed to blurting things out. You can get your emotions to work for you, rather than run you down. We all have fire in us. It just needs to be harnessed."
The issue hits stands this weekend.
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WTC Review
From FOX & Friends FOXNEWS.COM HOME
First Look at Oliver Stone's 'World Trade Center' Tuesday, July 11, 2006 By Roger Friedman
Six weeks ago, I told readers of this column about seeing the first half hour of Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" at the Cannes Film Festival. It was a sneak peek, but I predicted that Stone had made an excellent movie about the Sept. 11 tragedies based on what we saw that night.
Last night, a handful of others and I got another preview — this time of the full film. It was shown to us on high-definition videotape, with temporary music and not all of it has been color corrected. As Stone said to us in a statement that was read aloud before the screening: There wasn't a bit of actual film in what we watched. The final cut is slated to hit theaters Aug. 9.
Even so, I can still tell you from this screening that Stone has made an elegant, powerful, moving and genuinely personal document about the horrors that happened inside and outside of the World Trade Center. Because of its scope, "World Trade Center" is grander than "United 93" and perhaps has some loftier cinematic aspirations. And as much as it's all about the real men and women whose acts of courage nearly got them killed that day, "World Trade Center" is nonetheless an Oliver Stone film through and through.
What Stone has done is base his movie on the stories of two Port Authority policemen who went into Tower 2 of the World Trade Center too late and with little information. The building collapsed on them, burying them and their colleagues. Only 20 people were pulled from the rubble alive. John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno — played respectively by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena — were numbers 18 and 19. We have to think of "World Trade Center" as a movie first — and in that Stone has done an excellent job. The three best-known actors are Cage, Maria Bello as McLoughlin's wife and Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jimeno's wife. From then, on, however, the casting of this film is really terrific.
There are lots of small parts, and you'll see Donna Murphy, Patti D'Arbanville, Stephen Dorff, William Mapother, Dorothy Lyman, Frank Whaley and Nicholas Turturro, among others. The underused Viola Davis has a beautiful turn toward the end as a woman Bello's character meets in a waiting room. It's like a who's who of character actors. Andrea Berloff's script gently weaves together the stories of the McLoughlin and Jimeno families, avoiding ethnic stereotypes. The screenplay feels streamlined and clean, wasting no time telling the story of how the men became trapped and what was done to save them.
Much of Cage and Pena's performances rely on close-ups of their faces in the dark, and often just their voices to get them through scenes. That these are incredibly effective says as much about the actors as it does the director. And don't think that because we know the end of the story there aren't some surprises. In particular, there is one moment underneath the collapsed skyscrapers between the trapped policemen that will leave you shaken — it's so unexpected. The movie also makes a hero of Dave Karnes, the retired Marine who discovered where McLoughlin and Jimeno were hidden. Karnes, played by Michael Shannon, was in his Wilton, Conn., office when he saw the towers fall. He got a haircut, changed into fatigues and drove to Ground Zero.
Karnes' story is really one of serendipity and fate, although Stone — and it wouldn't be one of his films otherwise — tries to paint him as a sort of mythic, unknown American soldier-hero. We'll let him have that. What Stone has done, though, is make a real war movie with the World Trade Center as a battlefield. In that way, it almost resembles his best film, "Platoon," as the Port Authority cops are instantly turned into soldiers who know they may not be coming home. Cage comes across as a kind of John Wayne figure, with Pena as his loyal student. You can feel Stone straining toward emulating John Ford, and I think a few times he actually achieves it, especially in the scenes with Cage and Pena underground.
But mostly Oliver Stone has made a wrenching, accurate account of a terrible tragedy seem personal and immediate. There's nothing exploitative here, just good, well-wrought drama.
World Trade Center
The Poseidon Adventure bringing tidal waves to a cinema near you in June, and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, due to open this autumn. According to Stone, the film, starring Nicolas Cage, is an apolitical story of universal human interest. 'This is not about the motives of the terrorists,' he has insisted, 'or who the terrorists were, or the politics of 9/11 in any way. This film is the story of two guys trapped inside and their families on the outside. It's a no-nonsense, austere, verité document of what they went through in those 24 hours.'
Hilariously, a 'film expert' at Purdue University, Indiana, declared that Hollywood has waited a respectable amount of time to tackle such subject matter. Professor William J Palmer said: 'Just like a spouse mourning a death, there is a proper time to wait before one starts dating. The same is true for Hollywood. With past events, such as the Vietnam War and Watergate, there was a two-year gap before films were produced. The trend is different for 9/11.'
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 Towering figures in 'WTC' film
BY PAUL D. COLFORD DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
The poster for Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" offers a stark depiction of the twin towers as monoliths flanking two men who defied the odds to emerge from the ruins. The two are Port Authority cops - Sgt. John McLoughlin and Officer Will Jimeno - the last two 9/11 heroes recovered alive after the towers collapsed.
Billed as "A True Story of Courage and Survival," the film will recount how they were trapped in the Trade Center's underground concourse for many hours and freed only at great risk to their rescuers. McLoughlin, a veteran cop played by Nicolas Cage, and Jimeno, then in his first year on the job and portrayed by Michael Pena, have both since retired.
"It needs to be told how this horrific tragedy brought Americans and the world together to help those in need," McLoughlin said when the film was announced last summer. Stone, known for politically charged films such as "JFK" and "Platoon," praised Andrea Berloff's script for its "emotion and simplicity."
After shooting in New York City last fall, the Paramount production wrapped on Friday in Playa del Rey, near Los Angeles. "World Trade Center" is one of two feature films due this year that will deal with 9/11 head-on. Others are expected in 2007. "Flight 93," written and directed by Paul Greengrass, will bow on April 28.
The 90-minute film will reenact the story of the doomed flight in real time - "from takeoff to hijacking to the realization by those onboard that their plane was part of a coordinated attack," Universal Pictures says. A recent TV movie of the same name was the most-watched show in A&E's history.
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World Trade Center Movie Stills
Academy Award®-winning director Oliver Stone tells the true story of the heroic survival and rescue of two Port Authority policemen – John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno – who were trapped in the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after they went in to help people escape. The film also follows their families as they try to find out what happened to them, as well as the rescuers who found them in the debris field and pulled them out. Their story shows how the best in people rose above the tragic events of that day.
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BOXER STRETCH TO RESCUE CAGE AND PENA
Former boxer GARY STRETCH is set to rescue NICOLAS CAGE and MICHAEL PENA in OLIVER STONE's forthcoming September 11th (01) drama. ALEXANDER star Stretch, 37, has been cast as New York City cop JOHN BUSCHING, who rescued Sgt JOHN McLOUGHLIN (Cage) and Officer WILLIAM J JIMENO (Pena) from the ruins of the New York's World Trade Center.
The movie, which is set to be released in August (06), is based on the true story of McLoughlin and Jimeno, the last two survivors pulled from the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
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 Nicolas Cage to Star in Oliver Stone Film About Police Officers Trapped in Rubble on Sept. 11
NEW YORK Jul 9, 2005 — Nearly four years after the collapse of the World Trade Center, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone will direct a film based on the story of two police officers who were trapped in the rubble on Sept. 11, 2001. Nicolas Cage, who won a best-actor Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas," will star as Port Authority police Sgt. John McLoughlin. McLoughlin and fellow officer William J. Jimeno became trapped during rescue efforts after the collapse of the twin towers.
Paramount Pictures said the movie is expected to be released next year. "It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement Friday. "It's an exploration of heroism in our country but it's international at the same time in its humanity."
Paramount said the film also will focus on the officers' rescuers and their families. McLoughlin and Jimeno are said to be the last two men rescued. "I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed," McLoughlin said in a statement. "It needs to be told how this horrific tragedy brought Americans and the world together to help those in need." While the star power of Stone and Cage will likely make the movie the most high profile film to tackle 9/11, it's not the first. Many independent films have turned their lens to downtown New York, and in the 2002 film "The Guys," Anthony LaPaglia played a fire captain who lost eight men in the towers' collapse.
Stone has won best-director Oscars for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July." He also has directed "Alexander," "Nixon," "JFK" and "Wall Street." Screen credits for Cage include "Adaptation," "City of Angels" and "Moonstruck."
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"Untitled Oliver Stone 9/11 Project,"
not yet scheduled. Given its subject matter, Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie will be a big deal, whether it's high-quality or highly awful. And because this a Stone film, each is a distinct possibility. Not much is known about this project — though the title has been reported as "World Trade Center," even that seems to be uncertain. Some Web sites are calling it "September." The movie, which deals with the rescue of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, the last two survivors extracted from Ground Zero, stars Nicolas Cage, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's tentatively slated for release in August.
Oliver Stone begins shooting 9/11 movie in N.Y.
Oliver Stone has begun shooting one of the first Hollywood films about Sept. 11 in New York -- without recreating the large-scale devastation that's all too familiar to residents who lived through the 2001 attacks. After months of meetings with community and family groups, producers of the untitled movie have promised to tread carefully on sensitive ground. Most of the major action portraying the World Trade Center collapse will be shot on a Los Angeles sound stage. And although news footage of the towers themselves will be shown during the film, it will play on television screens in the background. "We're not doing the `Towering Inferno-Titanic' version," said Michael Shamberg, who's producing the Paramount film with his partner, Stacey Sher.
Stone started shooting scenes in New York last month for his untitled film, starring Nicolas Cage as one of two policemen who survived the towers' collapse and were rescued from the trade center ruins after 22 hours. After holding dozens of meetings, producers decided to limit their filming in the city, shooting the bulk of the action in Los Angeles and staying away from the 16-acre trade center site. Family members who met with the producers said they still weren't sure whether Hollywood would treat Sept. 11 with proper respect. "Are there going to be love scenes in it? How do you portray it correctly?" said Lee Ielpi, who lost his firefighter son on Sept. 11, and met with producers about the film. "It has to be done with some reverence." Others said they were concerned about how Stone -- whose more controversial films include "JFK," which offered conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination -- might interpret the attacks in the film. In October 2001, Stone was quoted as referring to the attacks as a "revolt" against multinational corporations. But in July, Stone called the untitled project "a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals."
"It's an exploration of heroism in our country -- but it's international at the same time in its humanity," he said. Charles Wolf, who lost his wife on Sept. 11, has met with producers and asked to see a copy of Andrea Berloff's script. He said he appreciated the outreach and sensitivity of the filmmakers, but wanted to make sure that the day's events, including details as precise as the officers' view of the elevator from the rubble, are represented accurately. "I think they need to be factual. It's too close in people's minds," Wolf said. "`Based on a true story' should not happen here." Because Berloff's script focuses entirely on police officers John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno's experience on Sept. 11, the film will not interpret the politics or meaning of Sept. 11, the producers said. Stone has taken great care to portray the event as it happened, and has worked to make sure that Cage, Michael Pena and the other actors playing officers are using authentic equipment. "We're not doing everyone's story that day," said Shamberg. "We're trusted with the accuracy of the particular story that we're telling." The script about McLoughlin and Jimeno also focuses on their families. The filmmakers plan to show news footage of the towers on TV screens watched by actors, the producers said.
The Stone film may not be the first studio film about Sept. 11 to be released. "Flight 93," a Universal Studios film about the hijacked plane that left Newark, N.J., and crashed into a Pennsylvania field, is scheduled for an April release. Stone's film will be shooting in New York through mid-November and is tentatively scheduled to open Aug. 11, one month before the attacks' fifth anniversary. Other Sept. 11 films are in development, including an adaptation of the book, "102 Minutes" and a TV miniseries based on the findings of the Sept. 11 commission. Paramount hired Jennifer Brown, a former vice president for community development at the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. in charge of rebuilding the trade center site, to act as a liaison with the community. Brown set up more than a dozen meetings with business, community, family and survivor groups, along with police and fire officials. Brown said that once people understood that the story was only about the officers and not about the entire story of Sept. 11, they were supportive.
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Oliver Stone's September 11 film to premiere on August 11
9-26-05
Oliver Stone's feature film about the September 11 terror attacks will reportedly premiere in August next year, one month ahead of the fifth anniversary of the tragedy. The triple Oscar-winning director is making the first major Hollywood film about the attacks, which will tell the story of the last two people pulled from the rubble of New York's World Trade Center. Paramount Pictures picked the August 11, 2006 date for the opening of the still-untied film, which will star
Nicolas Cage, to "avoid the appearance that it was commercially exploiting the disaster," Daily Variety said. "You really didn't want to be on that date because you don't want it to appear that we were trying to exploit it," said the studio's president of distribution Wayne Lewellen. Producers are keenly aware of sensitivity of the subject matter as a four-year-old taboo on dramatising the events that shook America slowly wears off with at least two films of the attacks in the works.\
In addition, some people linked to the project are concerned that Stone, who has been publicly critical of US President George W. Bush's handling of the attacks and their aftermath, may attempt to introduce his own politics into the movie, Variety said. "It's an exploration of heroism in our country -- but is international at the same time in its humanity," said Stone, who won the best director Oscar for his war epics "Born On the Fourth Of July" (1989) and 1986's "Platoon" as well as best screenplay for prison drama "Midnight Express" (1978).
Oscar-winning star Cage will take the lead role of New York Port Authority policeman Sergeant John McLoughlin, who was trapped along with one of his fellow officers in the mangled wreckage of one of the twin towers that crumbled after being hit by hijacked passenger jets. The movie will focus on the two men as well as on their rescuers and families as they battle to find out what happened to their missing loved ones in the aftermath of the attacks that left a total of around 3,000 people dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
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Stone plans 9/11 terror attack film
9-20-05
Director Oliver Stone is rumoured to be bringing the story of the September 11 attacks to the big screen. According to the New York Post, Stone has arrived in the city to meet with the families of those killed and injured in the terrorist outrage. The story is to be told through two Port Authority police officers.
One of the officers is expected to be played by Nicolas Cage. The city has to give permission before film sets spring up on every street corner. Stone is said to be at pains to reassure officials that the subject will be handled sensitively. The terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre happened in 2001.
Stone, director of Alexander last year and political biopics JFK and Nixon, is expected to start production in 2006.
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Cage will star
9-5-05
We shouldn't expect much in the way of subtlety in the highest-profile 9/11 movie under development. The not-yet-titled film will star Nicolas Cage and be directed by Oliver Stone, whose films have included a hotly debated examination of John F. Kennedy's assassination and angry looks at Vietnam and Wall Street.
Paramount Pictures, which will distribute the movie, says the story of the last two men rescued from the Trade Center will be about "how the human spirit rose above the tragic events," but that doesn't sound like a film by Stone. The ABC series, "Flight 93," Stone's film and "102 Minutes," a competing 9/11 rescue movie from Columbia Pictures, so far are without release dates.
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LOCATION: Hollywood
8-3-05
Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Maria Bello have been cast in Paramount Pictures' upcoming untitled World Trade Center project, which stars Nicolas Cage and will be directed by Oliver Stone from a screenplay written by Andrea Berloff. Pena will portray Port Authority police officer William J. Jimeno, one of the last two men rescued from the collapsed buildings, and Gyllenhaal will portray his wife, Allison. Maria Bello will play Donna, wife of Sgt. John McLoughlin, the officer who was trapped in the rubble with Jimeno; Nicolas Cage will play McLoughlin. The film is produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher and former InterMedia Films chairman Moritz Borman. Debra Hill will also be credited, posthumously, as a producer. Shamberg and Sher said, "As we cast this project, we brought the actors together with the real-life heroes they'll be playing. Both the Jimenos and the McLoughlins were impressed by the level of commitment that Michael, Maggie, and Maria were making to tell this story the right way. They all have the complete support of both families."
Pena said, "I was really impressed when I met Will -- the police motto, 'protect and serve,' really means something to him. All he ever wanted to do is be a cop -- it's one thing to read that on the page, but another thing to hear him say it. It feels great to be making a movie about great cops." Gyllenhaal said, "I'm excited to be a part of this important project. Will and John are genuine heroes and I think their wives, Allison and Donna, are heroes, too. I feel privileged to be part of a project that will remember how we all came together on that day."
Bello said, "It's been a very long time since I've been as moved as when I read Andrea's screenplay. I knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of telling this extraordinary story. And to have the opportunity to collaborate with the brilliance of Oliver and Nic is a creative dream." The film follows the story of two Port Authority policemen who are trapped in the rubble during the rescue efforts and also focuses on their rescuers and their families, who are attempting to find out what happened to the trapped men. The film is a portrayal of how the human spirit rose above the tragic events of that day.
Source: Paramount Pictures
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Stone adds trio to Twin Tower movie cast
8-4-05
Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello have been added to the cast of Oliver Stone’s forthcoming film about the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. The movie, also starring Nicolas Cage, will be based on the story of two Port Authority police officers who became trapped during rescue efforts after the collapse of the twin towers.
Pena will portray Officer William Jimeno and Gyllenhaal will play his wife, Allison. Cage will play Sgt John McLoughlin. McLoughlin’s wife, Donna, will be played by Bello, Paramount Pictures announced recently.
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Gyllenhaal, Pena Join Stone 9/11
8-1-05
 LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)- Revving toward a swift production, Oliver Stone's upcoming untitled World Trade Center project has added three cast members, including a second leading man to play opposite star Nicolas Cage. Michael Pena has signed on to play real-life Port Authority police officer William J. Jimeno. Along with Sgt. John McLoughlin (Cage), Jimeno was one of the last men rescued from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The film, scripted by Andrea Berloff, focuses on those two men, the people trying to rescue them and their families waiting at home.
"I was really impressed when I met Will -- the police motto, 'protect and serve,' really means something to him," Pena says in a statement. "All he ever wanted to do is be a cop -- it's one thing to read that on the page, but another thing to hear him say it. It feels great to be making a movie about great cops." Pena's recent credits include "Million Dollar Baby" and "Crash." He's also had a recurring role in FX's "The Shield."
In addition to Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello have joined the Paramount Pictures project, which is produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher and former InterMedia Films chairman Moritz Borman. The late Debra Hill, who oversaw the project's earliest development will get a posthumous producer credit. "As we cast this project, we brought the actors together with the real-life heroes they'll be playing," Shamberg and Sher say. "Both the Jimenos and the McLoughlins were impressed by the level of commitment that Michael, Maggie, and Maria were making to tell this story the right way. They all have the complete support of both families."
Gyllenhaal ("Happy Endings," "Secretary") is set as Jimeno's wife Allison, while Bello ("The Cooler") will play Donna, McLoughlin's wife.
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Wives set in Stone drama
Gyllenhaal, Bello to star in 9/11 pic
Paramount has tapped Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello to portray the wives of Port Authority officers rescued from the World Trade Center in the studio's untitled Oliver Stone project. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena had been previously announced as filling the respective roles of Sgt. John McLoughlin and Officer William J. Jimeno.
Stone's expected to start shooting the pic, based on Andrea Berloff's script, this fall in New York. Project is produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher and former InterMedia Films chairman Moritz Borman. The late Debra Hill will be credited as a producer. Gyllenhaal and Bello read for the parts last week and have already met with their real-life counterparts.
"Both the Jimenos and the McLoughlins were impressed by the level of commitment that Michael, Maggie and Maria were making to tell this story the right way," Shamberg and Sher said. "They all have the complete support of both families." Jimeno and McLoughlin were among the many rescuers who risked their lives Sept. 11, 2001, by rushing into the smoking WTC buildings. The duo was among the few who survived the fall of the towers, thanks to the frantic efforts of other rescuers who pulled them from the rubble before their oxygen ran out. Gyllenhaal is currently appearing in "Happy Endings." Bello stars in New Line's upcoming "A History of Violence."
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Michael Pena Joined Hillary Swank and Nicholas Cage in Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie
The actor who starred in "Crash" and "Million Dollar Baby", both written by Paul Haggis, has been chosen to star alongside Nicolas Cage and Hillary Swank in the untitled World Trade Center rescue project, which will be put into production later this year in New York.
Oliver Stone's 9/11 project for Paramount offered Pena the part of a Port Authority cop, who answered the rescue call on Sept. 11, 2001, along with a colleague (Nicholas Cage). Jimeno went to work that morning after arguing with his pregnant wife over the name they would give their baby; several other officers who accompanied him died. The two cops are among the few people who survive the collapse.
The producer of the film, which is based on a script written by Andrea Berloff, are Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher and Moritz Borman.
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Stone assesses Sept. 11 project
7-13-05
Two men, a rookie police officer and his boss, are trapped 20 feet below a collapsed building. Their bodies are being crushed by massive chunks of cement and have begun to swell. Though they're relative strangers, they spend the next 14 hours goading each other to live, while their families worry over their fate and a ragtag group of rescuers tries to save their lives. It might be a typical Hollywood disaster movie, but it's actually scenes from the script (obtained by the Los Angeles Times) of the upcoming film about Port Authority police officers Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, among the last people rescued from the collapseof the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. And it is being brought to the screen by Oliver Stone, long seen as the nation's premier conspiracy-theorist-turned-director.
"It's not about the motives of the terrorists, or who the terrorists were, or the politics of 9/11 in any way," said Stone, whose involvement in the film (which will star Nicolas Cage) was made public by Paramount Pictures last week. "It's about people standing together and overcoming the problem. It's a no-nonsense, austere, vérité document of what they went through in those 24 hours, a procedural if you like, and it should be shot like that." Word of Stone's participation immediately led to convulsions on the Internet, where bloggers cracked morbid jokes about what Stone might deliver, and whether the director — who proffered a revisionist theory of the Kennedy assassination in his 1991 film "JFK" — would be a suitable candidate to tackle one of the most sensitive topics in recent American history. Others winced at the timing of Paramount's press release one day after the bombings in London.
A year from now, when the film presumably will be released, close to the fifth-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, audiences might be wondering whether they want to shell out 10 dollars to relive the experience. The riveting and well-crafted script — by 31-year-old newcomer Andrea Berloff — is not political. But it is disturbing, with shots of people jumping out of the towers and characters dying under slabs of concrete. Stone's visceral style of directing could amplify the terror experienced by the policemen and, consequently, by the audience. "[The project] came to me," said Stone, who says he was given the script by his Creative Artists Agency agent Bryan Lourd back in late December, although he wasn't offered the project until May. "If it hadn't come to me, I wouldn't have done it. [The script] just hit me between the eyes."
The director himself thinks that a film about 9/11 should have "been done right away. I don't think you should run from things. You should confront them. It's better for the country. Look at the English [reaction to the recent London subway bombings]. They took it and absorbed it and continued on. They didn't run around and call for huge pieces of legislation costing billions of dollars to defend our homeland and create a huge war in a foreign country." That is just the sort of subtext that conservative Internet bloggers believe could infuse a film in Stone's hands. Given the narrative story arc of the script, though, it would be hard for a director to add explicit political content, with the two major protagonists spending most of the film in a hole, unaware that the towers have even fallen down.
While allusions to 9/11 have begun to filter through pop culture — most notably in Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" allegory — the untitled Stone film is on track to become the first high-profile studio film to explicitly deal with the tragedy. Although Spielberg's film earned largely glowing notices, some reviewers were troubled by his use of 9/11 imagery, and others have begun to wonder whether the gritty darkness of "War of the Worlds" has turned off some moviegoers. Disaster films usually work on the principle that the on-screen mayhem is a fantastical occurrence, a freakish event that will be suitably confronted, and resolved, by the film's hero. Hollywood has traditionally taken years to explore wounds to the national psyche. It took more than a decade from the start of American involvement in Vietnam for Hollywood to produce "Coming Home" and "The Deer Hunter," and another decade before Stone made "Platoon." Some episodes from American history — the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima — have barely been examined by Hollywood.
Stone, who's coming off the flop "Alexander," has long been a lightning rod for his controversial stances on everything from Kennedy to Castro. In the aftermath of 9/11, the director was excoriated by members of the press for suggesting that the attacks were a revolt against multi-nationals, "a rebellion against globalization, against the American way," he said at the time. He told the New Yorker about his fantasy of making a "bullet of a film about terrorism, like 'The Battle of Algiers,' " the 1966 film about the Algerian war in which director Gillo Pontecorvo's sympathies lie with the FLN terrorists. "You show the Arab side and the American side in a chase film with a 'French Connection' urgency, where you track people by satellite, like in 'Enemy of the State.' My movie would have the CIA guys and the FBI guys, but they blow it. They're a bunch of drunks from World War II who haven't recovered from the disasters of the '60s — the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. My movie would show the new heroes of security, the people who really get the job done, who know where the secrets are." After Friday's announcement connecting the director to the project, bloggers had a field day with visions of a stereotypical Stone paranoid fantasy. "Is Hollywood so out of touch it thinks Stone's version of 9/11 is what America is clamoring for? After 'Alexander,' at that?" asked blogger Mickey Kaus, while another enterprising blogger on the Huffington post wrote up a fake version of the script in which the two lead characters discuss a possible conspiracy in highly inflammable terms.
In fact, the script, which might be the most coherent, moving piece of material to fall into Stone's hands in over a decade, appears to be a straightforward account of the rescue of Jimeno and McLoughlin (the latter to be played by Cage). The story also focuses on their families, and their ad hoc group of rescuers, which includes a born-again Christian former Marine, who drove in his Porsche from Connecticut to help out, as well as a recovering-alcoholic-former paramedic with an expired license and a couple of New York City police officers who at one point had nothing but a pair of handcuffs with which to dig Jimeno out. While waiting to be rescued, one of the policemen even dreams of Jesus. According to one source close to the project, producers Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher ("Erin Brockovich") bought Jimeno's and McLoughlin's life rights out of their private development fund, after being brought the story by the late Debra Hill. Screenwriter Berloff has spent extensive time interviewing the real life participants in the drama. This is her first produced screenplay. The film was initially set up at Universal but is now being produced at Paramount.
The film project does bring Stone back to the blue collar terrain of some of his most successful works: "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July." He met with both Jimeno and McLoughlin. "I found them both to be courageous, deeply wounded people. They're both still suffering from the injuries," said Stone, who then quoted Jimeno. "Will said this is a testament not to the evil, but to the good that we as human beings are capable of. That's important. That's healing."
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Nicolas Cage will star in a...
7-12-05
Paramount Pictures film about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center to be directed by Oliver Stone. The film, as yet untitled, is scheduled to be released next year and will tell the story of John McLoughlin and William Jimeno, the Port Authority police officers who were rescued after being trapped in the wreckage of the towers. Cage will portray McLoughlin; the role of Jimeno has not been cast.
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THREE-TIME Oscar winner Oliver Stone will direct...
7-11-05
superstar Nicolas Cage in the first major Hollywood movie about the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, producers announced. The as-yet untitled film, which will be made for Paramount Pictures, will tell the true stories of the last two men to be rescued alive from the ruins of the collapsed World Trade Centre in New York. "It's an exploration of heroism in our country - but is international at the same time in its humanity," said Stone, who won best director Academy Awards for his war epics Born On the Fourth Of July (1989) and 1986's Platoon.
"It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement issued by producers. Oscar-winning star Cage will take the lead role of New York Port Authority policeman Sergeant John McLoughlin, who was trapped along with one of his fellow officers in the mangled wreckage of one of the twin towers that crumbled after being hit by hijacked passenger jets. "I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Centre before and after it collapsed," said McLoughlin of the plans to make his story into a major movie.
"The people involved in putting this movie together are truly making an extraordinary attempt to tell those stories and the stories of those who are no longer with us," he said. The movie will focus on the two men as well as on their rescuers and families as they battle to find out what happened to their missing loved ones in the aftermath of the attacks that left a total of around 3000 people dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The film will be produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher as well as Moritz Borman, while the screenplay has been penned by Andrea Berloff.
Cage won the best actor Academy Award for 1995's Leaving Las Vegas, while stome won a third Oscar for the adapted screenplay of 1978's Midnight Express. The announcement of the first major film of the events four years ago came a day after a string of suspected al-Qaeda bombings on London's transport network left at least 50 people dead, marking the worst attack on the British capital since World War II.
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More on new movie about 911 with Nicolas Cage
NEW YORK - Nearly four years after the collapse of the World Trade Center, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stonewill direct a film based on the story of two police officers who were trapped in the rubble on Sept. 11, 2001. Nicolas Cage, who won a best-actor Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas," will star as Port Authority police Sgt. John McLoughlin. McLoughlin and fellow officer William J. Jimeno became trapped during rescue efforts after the collapse of the twin towers.
Paramount Pictures said the movie is expected to be released next year. "It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement Friday. "It's an exploration of heroism in our country — but it's international at the same time in its humanity." Paramount said the film also will focus on the officers' rescuers and their families. McLoughlin and Jimeno are said to be the last two men rescued.
"I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed," McLoughlin said in a statement. "It needs to be told how this horrific tragedy brought Americans and the world together to help those in need." While the star power of Stone and Cage will likely make the movie the most high profile film to tackle 9/11, it's not the first. Many independent films have turned their lens to downtown New York, and in the 2002 film "The Guys,"
Anthony LaPagliaplayed a fire captain who lost eight men in the towers' collapse. Stone has won best-director Oscarsfor "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July." He also has directed "Alexander," "Nixon," "JFK" and "Wall Street." Screen credits for Cage include "Adaptation," "City of Angels" and "Moonstruck."
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Stone, Cage Do 9-11
by Charlie Amter
Jul 8, 2005,
The September 11, 2001 terror attacks have gone from taboo to trendy. Until last month, there were two TV miniseries in the works, one at ABC and one at NBC. While the latter, an eight-hour production from the high-powered likes of Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, was scuttled two weeks ago, citing the competition from the rival network and budget concerns, there are now two movies on the drawing board to pick up the slack.
Columbia Pictures has a feature working its way through the studio focusing on the rescue attempts that took place between the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. and the collapse of the north tower at 10:28 a.m. Shattered Glass writer Billy Ray has already completed a first draft of the script, per Variety. But with Grazer and Howard bowing out of the 9-11 rush, the project with the most prestige--and blockbuster potential--will star Nicolas Cage and be directed by Oliver Stone for Paramount Pictures.
The untitled film is the fact-based story of the last two men--Port Authority police officers John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno--rescued from the collapse of the World Trade Center. The film follows their ordeals and the efforts of their rescuers. Cage stars as one of the cops. "The film is a portrayal of how the human spirit rose above the tragic events of that day," Paramount says in a press release. Announced Friday--just a day after terror attacks in London--the film has no release date. But according to Variety, the project has been fast-tracked and is already in preproduction.
"It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement. "It's an exploration of heroism in our country, but it's international at the same time in its humanity. "Andrea Berloff's screenplay is one of the best that's ever come to me out of the blue--I guess like that day," he continued. "It walloped me--and many others--with its emotion and simplicity. Clearly, it's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals. It's an exploration of heroism in our country--but is international at the same time in its humanity." The studio says it is developing plans to share proceeds of the film with charities benefiting those affected by 9-11.
As for the ABC miniseries, it is being produced by Marc Platt (Legally Blonde) from a script by Cyrus Nowrasteh (Into the West). Although the ABC project doesn't have a premiere date, NBC decided it didn't want the competition--or to foot the bill for the pricey project, which could have hit the $20 million mark. The network, which struggled last season and has since lost advertising revenue, pulled the plug on its 9-11 miniseries late last month, even though a script had been completed, preproduction had begun and the network had trumpeted the program at its upfront presentation to advertisers in May.
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Press Release Paramount Pictures
Nicolas Cage to Star in Untitled World Trade Center Project for Paramount Pictures; Oliver Stone to Direct
Friday July 8,2005
Film is Based on the True Story of September 11 Rescue Operation LOS ANGELES, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Academy Award®-winner Nicolas Cage will star in and three-time Academy Award®-winner Oliver Stone will direct an untitled World Trade Center project for Paramount Pictures. The film, a dramatic motion picture based on the true story of the rescue of two Port Authority police officers from the collapsed World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, will be produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher and former InterMedia Films chairman Moritz Borman. Debra Hill will also be credited, posthumously, as a producer. Andrea Berloff wrote the original screenplay. The film will be distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is the heroic story of the last two men, John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, rescued from the collapse of the World Trade Center. It follows the story of two Port Authority policemen who are trapped in the rubble during the rescue efforts. It also focuses on their rescuers and their families, who are attempting to find out what happened to the trapped men. The film is a portrayal of how the human spirit rose above the tragic events of that day.
Sgt. John McLoughlin, one of the two trapped officers, said, "I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed. It needs to be told how this horrific tragedy brought Americans and the world together to help those in need. The people involved in putting this movie together are truly making an extraordinary attempt to tell those stories and the stories of those who are no longer with us." William J. Jimeno, Ret. Port Authority Police Detective, added, "As a survivor of 9/11, I want people never to forget those that died from my department, the Port Authority Police of NY/NJ, and those from my fellow departments, the NYPD and FDNY, as well as all of the EMTs and the civilians in NYC, in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon. I know that with the talented cast of people that have been brought together by Double Feature Films to bring this film project to life, they will never be forgotten. It will also be a tribute to all those that gave everything they had to bring people home to their loved ones. This film is also a testament to the good that we as human beings are capable of. I have all the confidence in the world that with such a great script that was written by Andrea Berloff and having one of the world's greatest directors, Oliver Stone, who has served his country and knows the price of freedom, this film will be one that will live on for generations to come, not only in America but the world!"
Brad Grey, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures Motion Pictures Group, said, "This is a moving, personal story of courage and perseverance. The individual heroism and the collective human spirit portrayed in this project is storytelling at its finest. We feel fortunate, proud, and an enormous sense of responsibility making this movie at Paramount." Grey previously produced the award-winning documentary "In Memoriam: New York City, 9/11/01."
Gail Berman, president of Paramount Pictures, said, "Nicolas Cage is a gifted actor who's shown a special ability to connect with audiences everywhere with brilliant performances that always draw us into the inner lives of the characters he portrays. With a director of Oliver Stone's caliber, the humanity of Andrea Berloff's words will come to life. The combination of their talents is perfect for this incredibly poignant story." Oliver Stone said, "Andrea Berloff's screenplay is one of the best that's ever come to me out of the blue -- I guess like that day. It walloped me -- and many others -- with its emotion and simplicity. Clearly, it's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals. It's an exploration of heroism in our country -- but is international at the same time in its humanity."
Cage plays Sgt. John McLoughlin, a Port Authority police officer. Brad Weston and Pamela Abdy will oversee the project for Paramount Pictures. Shamberg and Sher, the Academy Award®-nominated producers of "Erin Brockovich," "Pulp Fiction," and "Garden State," among many others, specialize in films about the times we live in. Borman served as executive producer of "The Quiet American," and producer of "Alexander," and many other films. Paramount Pictures is currently developing plans for charity organizations working with the victims and heroes of 9/11 to benefit from this project.
Paramount Pictures is a part of the entertainment operations of Viacom, Inc., one of the world's largest entertainment and media companies and a leader in the production, promotion, and distribution of entertainment, news, sports, and music.
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