Attack shuts down Hollywood

Feature film production was brought to a halt in Los Angeles and at location sites Tuesday following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was not clear when production would resume. Variety observed that a number of studios were reassessing whether to go forward with films that featured terrorist plots. It noted, for example, that the upcoming Warner Bros. movie, Collateral Damage, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger includes an opening scene in which a terrorist sets off an explosion in a skyscraper. A trailer for Spider-Man was pulled off the film’s official Web site Tuesday because it includes a helicopter sequence shot between the towers of the World Trade Center. Nevertheless, Vivendi Universal said that it planned to reopen its Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando and Southern California today, and Disney said it will also reopen Orlando’s Disney World and Anaheim’s Disneyland. Both companies abruptly shut down the theme parks following Tuesday’s attacks.