Hot Trailer: ‘Anchorman 2′ 
2ND UPDATE: Charlie Sheen Fired Selma Blair From … 
Time Warner Cable Sued For Passing Lakers-Dodgers Costs On … 
Jonah Hill Signs For Management With LBI 
TOLDJA! ‘Dumb And Dumber To’ Proves No-Brainer … 
Salma Hayek’s Animated Passion Project ‘The … 
Relativity Moves Scott Cooper’s ‘Out Of The … 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Lego Movie’ 
Russell Crowe Sets ‘The Water Diviner’ For … 
Comedy ‘I Didn’t Do It’ Gets Series Order … 
CNN’s ‘New Day’ Debut Up In Demo But … 
Liv Tyler To Co-Star In Damon Lindelof’s HBO Pilot … 
DreamWorks Animation Launches Effort To Re-Position Itself … 
‘Pacific Rim’ Sequel In Planning Stages, … 
Legendary “Down To Handful” Of Studio Suitors: … 
UPDATE: Dan Harmon Apologizes For Comments Slamming … 
Paramount- Montecito Set Black List Scribes Eyal Podell … 
‘Bioshock’ Creator Ken Levine Takes On … 
Deadline Expands: Hires Washington Post Journalist Lisa De … 
Ratings Rat Race: ‘The Voice’ Rises, … 
Angelina Jolie Stunt Double Files First U.S. Phone-Hacking … 
I know it’s fashionable in some political circles to slam Hollywood at every opportunity. 
But al-Qaida expert Lawrence Wright says America owes a debt of gratitude to screenwriters who helped the CIA imagine Osama Bin Laden scenarios after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That’s right — screenwriters. Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross interviewed Wright because of his 2006 Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaida and the Road to 9/11, his one-man play turned 2010 HBO film My Trip To Al-Qaida. But Wright also wrote the 1998 movie The Siege, directed by Ed Zwick, about a secret U.S. abduction of a suspected terrorist and how it leads to a wave of terrorist attacks in New York. Though a box office failure, Wright has claimed it was “the most-rented movie in America after 9/11.” It also drew the attention of the CIA, relevant this week because of the pundit debate over whether the U.S. should have taken Bin Laden dead or alive:
GROSS: How did the reality of [Bin Laden's] demise compare with some of the scenarios you’d imagined?
WRIGHT: Actually, Terry, I think it was in 2006, the CIA came to me to write a scenario, in their words, about what would we do if we got Bin Laden because this has been a subject of concern within the intelligence community. What if we did get him? How would we treat him? Where would we take him? Would it be better to take him alive or dead? And because I had written this movie, The Siege, and Hollywood had done a somewhat better job of connecting the dots about terrorism and the threat to America than the intelligence community. The CIA was reaching out to screenwriters, such as I had done, and I said: ‘Well, you know, I’m a reporter. I can’t go writing screenplays for the CIA. But I’ll tell you in the form of an op-ed for The New York Times what I think if we were able to catch bin Laden.’
Wright’s remarks also recall that October 2001 meeting between a group of two dozen Hollywood writers and directors asked to brainstorm with Pentagon advisers and officials over a three-day period about what could happen next following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Clearly that dialogue between the U.S. government and Hollywood continued long after …
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
No, America does not owe Hollywood its gratitude. Hollywood owes America its gratitude for simply permitting Hollywood to exist.
STFU
Seems like a load of self-serving bs.
hollywood post 9/11 will be most remembered for turkeys like Green Zone, Redacted, In the Valley of Elah, Rendition, Stop Loss,
These were painful. I agree.
Great article Nikki! One of my professors was part of this “meeting” in 01. No details were discussed but he said the group was very unique in Hollywood diversity with who was present.
You’re correct. I knew an insider in this group, too (although he dropped out after raising questions about its financial management), and it was, indeed, a think tank for real-life action picture scenarios. Isn’t it interesting that when people marvel that a terrorist act or a natural disaster was “just like a movie,” so many of them then turn around and take a dig at Hollywood for having an imagination?
The answer to your question is “no.”
Screenwriters spend their days going over every possible scenario in their heads. They have imagination which the boys at Langley clearly don’t have. I’m sure the possibilty of terrorists hijacking commercial planes and using them as weapons had been written back in 80′s, long before it actually happened.
Tom Clancy was I think one of the first writers who came up with this idea in his book Debt of Honor. In the book a plane crashes into the Capitolium.
The idea that an industry that has profited by debasing the country in which it has made its fortune is nauseating. The answer is NO.
Who mentioned anything about Wall Street?
By “Hollywood Diversity” do you mean job titles because we all know it was a room full of white males.
“Diversity” means that the topic is discussed, but few will do anything. This fairly famous black director said (to paraphrase his statement), “Do you really think they are interested in that? If they were interested in diversity, they would have done it by now?” He said that in response to my naively buying into the rhetoric.
Clap trap, self serving and laughable. The stuff these guys came up with was as lame as their movies.
C’mon Hollywood. Some tremendous people in the intelligence community did painstaking work that took years to come together to get the most wanted terrorist in the world, and already some screenwriters are trying to claim they’re better at this sort of thing than the pros?
If that were true why do the same cliches keep popping up in every action film I see?
There have always been creative minds involved in brainstorming and some writers like Joel Rosenberg were truly ahead of the curve, but this sickening attempt at Hollywood writers to grab credit for what it took Washington 8 years to do, carefully assembling information from the very tactics and techniques that Hollywood put down and made the object of criticism in films like ‘Rendition’ is deplorable. Credit goes to the eight years of the behind-the-scenes strategy builders, the ridiculed leaders who meticulously put the pieces of the puzzle together and the courageous SEALs who carried out the mission with the sort of raw courage and rejection of celebrity that Hollywood will never grasp.
Yes, of course. It’s all about Hollywood. Always.
Exactly!!!
I find this article a little embarrassing. It’s not a compliment, obviously, but I don’t mean it as an insult. Just a sincere reaction.
America owes us nothing. We owe America.
Great article. I think it’s somewhat redeemable our intelligence community consulted screenwriters. That, or telling.
No I don’t think America owes Hollywood gratitute, but I think Hollywood should adapt a different view to business to be more consciencious about the projects they put out, because media can influence, brainwash people….9/11 was a huge event and Hollywood is media so the system had to reach out to Hollywood to be their voice and be heard! I think private businesses should seperate themselves from government in order to protect their rights and privacy….it’s why Democracy / Capitalism were founded….when you have too much of one group called such as government too involved in your busimesses, you give up your human birth rights to live / work the way you want. As artits I feel we feel the satisfaction from doing good work and people love our work, but what comes with that is I also feel strongly is a sense of moral responsibility to be ” aware ” of how our work affects people, and what messages do we as good people / artists want to send out through our work. Along the way the industry has become so greedy and love $$$$$ so much that they forgot about integrity and the reasons why they became artists to begin with…..since our industry is media, use that power to do and promote good rather than bad! The reason TV ratings are down because of all the trashy reality TV shows that most people detest….not to mention these reality TV shows have put a lot of writers, actors, directors and others out of work. The reality TV shows are ” toxic “, especially when they’re about dysfunctional people who just ramble on , create drama for the sake of TV with no real purpose! These reality TV shows not only send out terrible messages to the world, but also the wrong image of people of this country! Most America is not like the reality TV shows portray! Art should imitate real life, in this case most are made up! These shows not only hurt the employment of overall artists, destroy ratings becuase they don’t appeal to most of the audience, but they also destroy the images of America overall! So I think we should cancel the reality TV shows, go back to sitcoms, drramas, talent shows etc….this will employ back all of the out of work artists and the ratings will go back up! Also in order to preserve our human birth rights to freedom, capitalism we must protect ourselves from any groups from infringing on our rights and privacy….when we plave too much faith in one group we set ourselves up for disappointment! The US system is broken, corrupt, and broke! Fellow artists , stick to your passion, your love and do good work that change lives in a way where it makes you feel it was worth your while of being on this earth! Use your art / power for good to help influence and chnage lives for the better! Please keep that in mind when you’re working, because that feeling is rewarding, and your audience should never habve to owe you anything, but just because we have done our jobs well!
Isn’t this comments section supposed to be for engaging discussion? If reading about the industry makes you angry, then stop reading. Please find a vocation or reading material that makes you happy.
Pre-9/11, the American people failed to imagine that the FAA, et.al. could be so incompetent that they could need Hollywood writers to help the government anticipate attacks. Maybe the participants in that meeting did contribute to defending against some post-9/11 scenarios because government “strategists” were not up to the task – kudos to those individuals who stepped up to the plate as patriots. But rather than laud “Hollywood,” I feel more like another round of applause for the airplane passengers who tackled the 2001 Shoe Bomber and the 2009 Underwear Bomber.
@AaronSch,
I’m assuming the industry you’re referring to is the financial industry. Which is weird, since this story is about Hollywood.
Kids, they go to Hollywood because it’s all showbiz: staged, phony, designed to take an audience to a desired conclusion…
That’s democracy today. Orwell called it.