9/11 Projects at Paramount & Columbia

Source: Comingsoon.net

Paramount Pictures will finance and distribute an untitled feature about the rescue of two Port Authority police officers from the rubble of the World Trade Center, says Variety. Oliver Stone will direct the film and Nicolas Cage will star.

Andrea Berloff, who recently signed to write Paramount's remake of Don't Look Now, has written the script. The Stone project is on a fast track with pre-production already started in New York.

Paramount isn't the only studio now moving briskly to tell the 9/11 story, adds the trade.

After optioning the Jim Dwyer-Kevin Flynn book "102 Minutes" in February, Columbia Pictures has already received a first script draft by Billy Ray, writer and director of Shattered Glass.

The project addresses the rescue attempts that took place between the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. and the collapse of the first tower at 10:28 a.m.

The Stone-directed project will focus on a much smaller story from the fateful day. Cage will portray one of the two Port Authority police officers, Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin, who were among the many rescuers who risked their lives by rushing into the smoking buildings; the duo were among the very few who survived the fall of the towers, thanks to the frantic rescue efforts of other rescuers who pulled them from the rubble before their oxygen ran out.