How did the September 11 attacks change the ending of 'Men in Black II'?

Director Barry Sonnenfeld was at Sony Studios in Los Angeles when the planes hit the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, and as he tried to comprehend the scale of the tragedy and check on friends and loved ones, he soon realized he faced a delicate dilemma.

Filming was then underway on “Men in Black II,” the sequel to the 1997 blockbuster starring Will Smith, which Sonnenfeld described as “truly a love letter to New York.” Parts of the film were filmed in the city during the summer of 2001 before production was completed in Los Angeles.

As he stood as stunned as the rest of the world, Sonnenfeld thought about the ending of his film; It was scheduled to take place on the roof of one of the towers, where two agents played by Smith and Tommy Lee Jones confront an alien villain and use the top of the tower to return an alien princess to her home planet. But that option is no longer available.

“I chose the World Trade Center intentionally because they were an eye magnet,” Sonnenfeld said. “As soon as the first tower fell, I realized the truth.”

Every aspect of American life was affected in the days, weeks and months following the attack, including the entertainment industry and culture in general.

Sonnenfeld embarked on a journey to rethink the ending of the second part of his film, and he was not the only one in that; In the months following the attacks, images of the Towers were removed from various works of art, from Friends and Sex and the City to Zoolander and the first teaser for Spider-Man.

With life in the United States at a standstill, all studio filming was canceled, and in the end, the climax of "Men in Black II" was rewritten. Although the closing scene still took place on a rooftop, it was a plain, unmarked rooftop, and they even managed to use a lot of the original sketches for the scene, Sonnenfeld said.

He continued, "We wished we had come up with a completely different solution instead of setting the scene on the roof of another building. It happened, but the result was not at all successful."

"It's a very bad scene, partly because I think we weren't putting our hearts and feelings into the work," he added.

Not only was this at the end of the film, but the towers were removed from between 8 and 12 shots of the film, according to Sonnenfeld.

He said: "I did not enjoy working on Men in Black II at all. No one wants to remember that production experience."

He pointed out that "they may have held a party to wrap up filming," but added, "I don't think I attended it; many people did not attend that party." The director added, "I can only stress over and over again that our sadness was small compared to the great sadness."

The 1969 comedy "The Putney Swope" was one of the first films to show the World Trade Center towers on the big screen, as they appeared in their early stages of construction. They also appeared while still under construction in films such as “The French Connection” and Robert Redford’s “The Hot Rock.”

When their construction was completed in 1973, they immediately became two prominent icons in a city full of icons. They quickly became favorites among visual story makers for their ability to convey many meanings without the need for words. Then they suddenly disappeared, becoming a reminder of a nightmare that changed the world.