World Trade Center Edited Out of Pacino Film

September 18 -- Rather than risk retraumatizing moviegoers, images of the now-destroyed World Trade Center are being edited out of the upcoming movies Zoolander, Serendipity, and the Al Pacino film People I Know, which are all set in New York.People stars Pacino as a New York City publicist, and features the World Trade Center in scenes in which he heads to the financial district to buy drugs. The twin towers are shown sidewise in one scene — a shot used to convey a post-binge Pacino waking up from a rough night of booze and pills. The surreal shot, which was used to show his state of mind, is now "completely inappropriate," producer Leslie Urdang tells Variety's Michael Fleming

"It is an abstract, highly stylish shot that is completely inappropriate and will be removed from the film," said Urdang. "We've known in our minds [that] that and some other shots of the landscape would have to be reviewed, but this is the first day we've gotten a chance to look at it." Cutting on the film will have to wait: the director and his film were both displaced by the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. Miramax won't release the film until next year, Fleming reports. In the meantime, Urdang says the studio will "carefully assess the impact of each scene."

Time Machine Travels to 2002Another film that is undergoing cutting — and a release date change — is the $70 million sci-fi update The Time Machine, starring Guy Pearce.

DreamWorks' marketing chief, Terry Press, tells the New York Post that even before Tuesday's horrific events, the studio had planned to move the film from Christmas 2001 to Feb. 2002, in order to give it some breathing space at the box office.

In light of the tragedy, the studio has decided to re-edit a scene showing moon rocks raining on Manhattan. "There was no destruction of landmark buildings or anything like that," Press said, "but it's easy to take out."