NEW YORK – A New York City movie theater has pulled the trailer for “United 93,” which chronicles the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.
The AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 theater in Manhattan made the decision after viewers complained they found it too upsetting.
“I don’t think people are ready for this,” theater manager Kevin Adjodha said.
“One lady was crying,” Adjodha told Newsweek. “She was saying that we shouldn’t have played the trailer, that this was wrong.”
Universal Studios in Los Angeles said it had no plans to pull the trailer for the film, which is scheduled to open in theaters April 28.
“Because ‘United 93’ deals with the most emotional, tragic day in recent American history, we expect that some moviegoers will have a strong response to its images and narrative,” the studio said in a statement. It said its marketing materials should retain the movie’s realism, “so that those who elect to see the film will be prepared for the experience.”
“United 93” is scheduled to make its world premiere on the Tribeca Film Festival’s opening night. The festival, which was created to help lower Manhattan recover economically from the 2001 attack, begins April 25 and runs through May 7.
“We are very supportive of the film,” said festival publicist Tammie Rosen.
Director Paul Greengrass, whose past films include “Bloody Sunday,” a dramatization of a 1972 massacre in Northern Ireland, consulted with the families of Flight 93 victims while making the film.
Families of Flight 93, a nonprofit group that represents some relatives, has praised the movie, and Universal Pictures has pledged to donate 10 percent of the first three days of the film’s grosses to the Flight 93 National Memorial.
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