{"id":342941,"date":"2026-09-10T16:03:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/342941\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T16:03:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T16:03:22","slug":"after-9-11-new-york-movies-like-men-in-black-ii-had-to-change-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/342941\/","title":{"rendered":"After 9\/11, New York movies like \u2018Men in Black II\u2019 had to change"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Barry Sonnenfeld was on the Sony studio lot in Los Angeles when planes hit the Twin Towers on September 11. In the midst of trying to absorb the scale of the tragedy and check on friends and loved ones \u2014 the director grew up in Washington Heights and his daughter was living in Chinatown \u2014 he soon realized he had a delicate problem on his hands.\n <\/p>\n

\n Filming was underway on \u201cMen in Black II,\u201d the sequel to the wildly successful 1997 Will Smith-led mega blockbuster that, in Sonnenfeld\u2019s words, was \u201creally a love letter to New York.\u201d The sequel filmed in the city during the summer of 2001 before continuing production in Los Angeles.\n <\/p>\n

\n As he stood shocked alongside the rest of the world, Sonnenfeld thought about the ending of his movie. It was set to take place on the roof of one of the towers, where the agents played by Smith and Tommy Lee Jones were to face off against an alien villain and use the top of the tower to send a space princess, revealed to be the character played by Rosario Dawson, back to her home planet. But that was no longer an option.\n <\/p>\n

\"thumb_22970670_970290.035_thumb.jpg\"<\/p>\n

9\/11 first responder reacts to records showing officials misled the public about the air quality around Ground Zero\n <\/p>\n

\"thumb_22970670_970290.035_thumb.jpg\"<\/p>\n

9\/11 first responder reacts to records showing officials misled the public about the air quality around Ground Zero<\/p>\n

1:47<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI picked the World Trade Center on purpose because they almost looked like a magnet,\u201d Sonnenfeld said. \u201cAs soon as the first one fell, I knew.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Every aspect of American life was affected in the days, weeks and months following the attack, including in the entertainment industry and culture more broadly.\n <\/p>\n

\n The 1969 comedy \u201cThe Putney Swope\u201d was one of the first films to feature the Twin Towers on the big screen, seen during the very early stages of their construction. They also appeared in movies like \u201cThe French Connection\u201d and Robert Redford\u2019s \u201cThe Hot Rock\u201d mid-build. When they were completed in 1973, they were instant icons in a city full of them, quickly becoming favored among visual storytellers because they accomplished so much with no words at all. Then they were gone, suddenly reminders of a nightmare that had changed the world so drastically that even fictional characters couldn\u2019t live in a world that hadn\u2019t.\n <\/p>\n

\"Smith<\/p>\n

\n Sonnenfeld embarked on a journey to rethink the ending of his sequel \u2014 and he was not alone. In the months following the attack, the towers were removed from everything from \u201cFriends\u201d and \u201cSex and the City\u201d to \u201cZoolander\u201d and the first teaser trailer for \u201cSpider-Man.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The towers were meant to appear in scenes throughout \u201cMen in Black II.\u201d \u201cWe had definitely set up that the World Trade Center was going to be not only the big surprise but also make you think, oh, of course, where else could it be?\u201d Sonnenfeld said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt was all a plan and it was part of the sort of \u2018MIB\u2019 folklore,\u201d he said, nodding to how the first \u201cMen in Black\u201d ended at another iconic New York location \u2014 the World\u2019s Fair pavilion in Queens.\n <\/p>\n

\n Sonnenfeld was with his good friend and co-producer on the sequel, Graham Place, when the towers fell.\n <\/p>\n

\n As the country came to a standstill, all filming at the studio was canceled. Not knowing what to do with themselves, Sonnenfeld and Place decamped for the Ivy, ordering gimlets despite the early hour.\n <\/p>\n

\n Ultimately, the script\u2019s climax was rewritten. The final scene still took place on a roof, albeit a nondescript one, and they were even able to use a lot of the same storyboards, Sonnenfeld said.\n <\/p>\n

\"Tommy<\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe almost wished we had come up with a totally different solution than putting it on the roof of a different building,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt is what it is, but it never worked.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a really terrible scene in part, I think, because we kind of didn\u2019t have our hearts in it,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n It wasn\u2019t just the ending of the film \u2014 the towers were erased from eight to 12 shots throughout the film, Sonnenfeld said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI so didn\u2019t like doing \u2018Men in Black II,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cNo one wants to remember that production.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He said they \u201cprobably did have a wrap party,\u201d but \u201cI don\u2019t think I went to it. A lot of people didn\u2019t go.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI can\u2019t keep stressing enough,\u201d the director added, \u201cours was a small sadness compared to the big sadness.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Sonnenfeld was on the Sony studio lot in Los Angeles when planes hit the Twin Towers on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-342941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}