New York Theater Yanks Trailer for Movie About 9/11 Attacks

By Linda Orlando

The AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 theater on 66th Street in Manhattan has stopped showing the movie trailer for "United 93," the new movie from Universal Pictures, because many viewers have complained that they found the trailer too upsetting to watch. The film chronicles, in real time, the terror of the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001. "I don’t think people are ready for this," theater manager Kevin Adjodha told Newsweek. "One lady was crying. She was saying that we shouldn’t have played the trailer, that this was wrong."

The trailer starts by showing passengers boarding the plane on a bright and sunny morning. Those happy images are quickly replaced by a disturbing scene that includes video from one of the actual television news reports of a jetliner about to hit one of the World Trade Center towers. Then the action moves back to the interior of the plane, where hijackers take control of the plane and a passenger calls his family to tell them what is happening. The trailer is currently being shown on about 3,000 screens across the U.S., but some theaters are instead showing a promotional spot about the "thinking" behind the making of the movie.

Adam Fogelson, president of marketing for Universal Studios in Los Angeles, said that it will still continue to show the trailer for the movie, which is scheduled for nationwide release on April 28, but the trailer will be shown only before R-rated movies or "grown-up" PG-13 ones. "The film is not sanitized or softened, it's an honest and real look" at the events of Flight 93, Fogelson told The New York Times. "If I sanitized the trailer beyond what's there, am I suggesting that the experience will be less real than what the movie itself is? We as a company feel comfortable that it is a responsible and fair way to show what's coming." Funny that he should use words like "responsible" and "fair" when speaking about Universal making grotesque profits from a horrific event that shattered the lives of millions of people all around the world. It’s been only five years, but apparently the vultures are tired of circling.

"United 93" is scheduled to make its world premiere on the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan, which begins April 25 and runs through May 7. The film’s premiere at Tribeca is particularly upsetting to some people, since the festival was created to provide economic assistance to lower Manhattan in recovering from the attacks. Universal Pictures has said that they will donate 10% of the first three days’ box office grosses to the Flight 93 National Memorial. Is it sincere generosity for Universal to make the gesture of shaving off only a microscopic sliver of their profits? Or is doing so merely a marketing ploy that they hope will make the movie more palatable by portraying them as philanthropists? Either way, they should be ashamed.