Terrorist-Themed TV Shows, Movies Bumped

ByABC News
September 13, 2001, 6:43 PM

September 12 -- Movie studios and television networks moved quickly to cancel or postpone entertainment programming that would echo Tuesday's horrifying real-life terrorist events.Upcoming movies Collateral Damage and Big Trouble, both of which feature deadly explosions as plot points, have been postponed, Variety reports.Damage, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger seeking vengeance after his family is killed in a bomb blast at a downtown skyscraper, was set to open Oct. 5. Warner Bros. released a statement today announcing their plans to shelve the film indefinitely. The studio will also pull all promotional materials for it, including posters, trailers, and the movie's Web site. The film's title refers to innocent people who are killed simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.Also problematic is Big Trouble, a comic ensemble film led by Tim Allen, featuring a scene in which a suitcase carrying a bomb ends up on a plane, though Touchstone Pictures spokeswoman Vivian Boyer tells the Hollywood Reporter that the characters manage to avert disaster.The film's press junket, which was set for this weekend, has been canceled, and the film's release date, which was to be Sept. 21, has been indefinitely postponed.Sony pulled a trailer for their upcoming film Spider-Man, due to a scene featuring the now-destroyed World Trade Center. A rep for the studio tells the Reporter that the scene in which a helicopter full of bank robbers is caught in a web spun by Spider-Man between the World Trade Center towers was created solely for the trailer and will not appear in the film, which is due in theaters next year

The Ed Burns-Heather Graham indie film Sidewalks of New York has also been postponed until later this year, not for any terrorist content, but, apparently, simply for its setting and title.Filming on Men in Black 2, Third Watch SuspendedColumbia Pictures' film Men in Black 2, which had scheduled scenes to be shot in New York, has temporarily shut down production.