Changing Lanes, starring Ben Affleck and Sweet Home Alabama,
starring Reese Witherspoon, will be the first features to shoot in Manhattan
following the Sept. 11th attacks, the Mayor’s Office of Theater, Film and
Broadcasting announced Wednesday.
The unit suspended issuing permits
following the devastation at the World Trade Center. It indicated that it
has also issued permits for refilming certain scenes in Spider-Man,
Stuart Little 2 and Men in Black 2, which included shots of the
WTC. (A battle at the end of Men in Black 2, originally shot at the
WTC, is being refilmed at the Chrysler Building, the New York Post
reported.)
Television production in the city was expected to resume
today for an episode of NBC’s Third Watch shooting in
Harlem.
On the other hand, removing the World Trade Center buildings
from scenes may backfire, the New York Post suggested
today.
Commenting that “Hollywood may have misread the nation’s mercurial
mood,” the newspaper observed that on the website Hollywood.com, users voted
78 percent to 22 percent to keep images of the Twin Towers in films. It also
noted that some audiences have applauded the glimpse of the two buildings in
the new movie Glitter, while some preview audiences for the upcoming
Zoolander “squirmed in their seats” when they noticed that the towers
were missing in one of the scenes.
A spokesman for Paramount Classics, which
is distributing Sidewalks of New York, told the Post: “Based
on audiences across the country standing up and applauding our trailer, we
will most definitely leave in the two seconds of film that shows the World
Trade Center in the background. That brief reminder seems to be a source of
pride for a lot of filmgoers.”
