How September 11 affected film and television

20 years ago, one of the most tragic events in modern history happened. El World Trade Center, popularly known as the twin towers, was destroyed by a terrorist attack that left the United States in despair. The events made television and cinema had to modify the plans of their premieres and launches. Movies like Spider-Man and series like Friends they modified some questions out of respect for the victims.

After the September 11 attack, there were different positions that were taken in the film industry that caused some stories to be modified, such as the case of Friends and Collateral Damage. While the sitcom deleted a scene in which Chandler (Matthew Perry) made bomb jokes, the movie removed an entire sequence in which Sofia Vergara she appeared as a terrorist hijacking a plane.

Other policies that were taken after the event was to eliminate the twin towers. Spider-Man, from Sam Raimi, had presented a trailer for his movie showing the iconic building and it was removed, along with all the promotional images that showed them. Something similar happened with the cases of Zoolander and The Sopranos, which eliminated them. The series starring James Gandolfini showed them in the rearview mirror of Tony soprano, during the opening. Men In Black 2 He also modified his story and transferred a key event from the World Trade Center a the statue of Liberty.

There were also peculiar cases, such as that of My Poor Little Angel 2, for which some channels eliminated the sequences that showed the twin towers before reissuing it on the small screen. Productions, such as Donnie Darko (in which even a plane falls from the sky) they preferred not to modify anything. X-Men: Apocalypse and WatchmenProductions that came a long time later, they added them digitally because they took place in times when they had not yet been demolished.

Fear on the set of Friends

For Friends, the attack against the twin towers It not only involved changing a scene but also a filming policy. As all sitcoms were used historically, they were recorded with the public present to capture the live reactions of each sequence. However, this was not the case for a time.

The cinematographer Nick McLean He said that the absence of the public was maintained for a long time and that “The girls were very scared”. Furthermore, it revealed: “They had bomb dogs roaming the sets, it was a time when we were very scared”. In the absence of the public to laugh at the situations in Friends, the production came up with a solution: the technicians were in charge of filling the positions in the stands.