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After 9/11, New York movies like ‘Men in Black II’ were never the same
- Director Barry Sonnenfeld was filming Men in Black II when the September 11 attacks occurred, forcing him to rewrite the sequel's climax. He had deliberately chosen the World Trade Center as a visual focal point.
- Since their 1969 construction, the Twin Towers were favored by visual storytellers, appearing in The Putney Swope, The French Connection, and The Hot Rock because they 'accomplished so much with no words at all.'
- Sonnenfeld erased the towers from eight to 12 shots throughout the film and moved the final scene to a nondescript roof. He admitted the reshot ending 'never worked' because his heart was not in it.
- Beyond Men in Black II, the entertainment industry scrubbed the towers from Friends, Sex and the City, Zoolander, and Spider-Man. These edits reflected a world transformed so drastically that fictional characters could no longer inhabit the pre-attack landscape.
- Sonnenfeld acknowledged that while losing the iconic location was difficult, 'ours was a small sadness compared to the big sadness.' The removal became a stark reminder of the tragedy that fundamentally altered New York.
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Total News Sources7
Leaning Left1Leaning Right0Center6Last UpdatedBias Distribution86% Center
Bias Distribution
- 86% of the sources are Center
86% Center
14%
C 86%
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