Stone's 'World Trade Center' Tiptoes Around Controversy
Aug. 8, 2006 — -- What if Oliver Stone were kidnapped and replaced by a walking, talking look-alike who did everything like Oliver Stone except produce the type of Sept. 11 film you'd expect from him?
With 1991's "JFK," the Oscar-winning director earned a special place in the hearts of conspiracy theorists. The man who gave us "Salvador," "Platoon" and "Nixon" has been derided as a political agitator and as a leading purveyor of gratuitous Hollywood violence for "Natural Born Killers."
But now, this lightning rod for controversy has reached out to the same groups who may have cringed when they heard he was making "World Trade Center." And perhaps the biggest surprise in the film, which opens Wednesday, is that Stone kept his pledge to keep politics out of the film.
Paramount Pictures even acknowledged several days ago that it hired Creative Response Concepts -- the PR firm behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Democrat candidate John Kerry -- to reach out to conservative groups.
Given that Stone is one of the country's most prominent Vietnam veterans, Paramount's employing this firm might baffle some of the filmmaker's longtime fans. But Stone has said for months that this film would be about courage and survival -- not politics.
Stone even points out that the two police officers at the heart of this film -- Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin -- wouldn't likely agree with his take on U.S. policy. But that hardly matters, he says.
"I can make a movie about them and their experiences, because they went through something that I can understand," Stone says. "Politics don't enter into it."
On Sept. 11, these two officers -- played by Nick Cage and Michael Peña -- rushed into the doomed Twin Towers and got trapped under 20 feet of rubble. For more than 12 hours, they kept each other alive, talking about their families and the things in life they love, and encouraging each other not to give up.
Related Stories
ABC News Live