Filming Originally Set to Take Place at Top of WTC for Movie about Terrorist Plot to Bomb the Twin Towers

[Archangel]

Jackie Chan. [Source: Reuters]

A scene for a Hollywood movie about a terrorist plot to blow up the World Trade Center was originally scheduled to be filmed at the top of one of the Twin Towers at this time, but the filming has been canceled because the script for the scene is late to arrive. (ABC News 9/19/2001; Empire 9/19/2001; Moore 9/27/2002) The action-comedy movie, titled Nosebleed, which was written in 1999 (see February 1999-September 11, 2001), is set to feature the well-known martial artist and actor Jackie Chan as a window washer at the WTC who uncovers a terrorist plot to bomb the Twin Towers. (Carver and Petrikin 2/7/1999; Jensen and Svetkey 9/24/2001) Actor 'Would Probably Have Died' if Filming Took Place - Chan will later tell the Hong Kong newspaper Oriental Daily News, "Filming was scheduled to have taken place at 7:00 a.m. [on September 11] and... I had to be at the top of one of the towers for one of the scenes." (ABC News 9/19/2001; Empire 9/19/2001) The scene, Chan will say, was going to be filmed at the "Top of the World restaurant." (Moore 9/27/2002)

Presumably he is referring to Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. Everyone who is in Windows on the World when Flight 11 hits the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) will subsequently die. (NPR 9/11/2003) Chan will comment, "I would probably have died if the shooting had gone ahead as planned." Today's filming at the WTC has been canceled, reportedly because the script for the scene that would have been filmed is late. (ABC News 9/19/2001; Empire 9/19/2001) "The action was good, but, somehow, the script not ready," Chan will say. Actor Is in Canada for Another Film - Instead of doing the scene for Nosebleed, Chan is in Toronto, Canada, where filming began the previous day for another movie he is starring in. That movie, The Tuxedo, is an action-comedy that Steven Spielberg is involved in producing. Chan will say of The Tuxedo, "I only did this movie because Steven Spielberg asked me himself." (Tourtellotte 6/17/2001; Bickley 7/11/2001; Moore 9/27/2002) He will recall learning of the attacks in New York during filming, saying: "After the first shot, I turned around and everyone was looking at one monitor, and nobody had responded to me. They said, 'Jackie, a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.' Then we saw the second plane crash. We knew it was a terrorist attack and everyone started crying." Chan will add, "The whole day I was like a walking dead man." (Klass 9/23/2002) Actor Learned 'Secrets' of the WTC in Preparation for Film - Chan has done a lot of groundwork for Nosebleed. "We had visited the [WTC] before September 11," he will recall. "The producer. My manager. We had dinner upstairs. We were getting all kinds of information. I was going to play a window washer, so they were telling me things like how many windows the building had." Chan has therefore learned "the 'secrets' of the towers—how air pressure was regulated with doors that might be useful as gags in one of his trademark fights—which sides of the buildings one could work on to avoid the wind," according to the Orlando Sentinel. (Moore 9/27/2002; Denerstein 9/28/2002) Production of Nosebleed will be canceled as a result of the 9/11 attacks. (Aberman 10/24/2001; Hoberman 12/4/2001)