Widows of Officers Killed on 9/11 Upset With Stone’s Movie

NEWARK, N.J. – The widows of two Port Authority Police officers killed on September 11, 2001, are angry that director Oliver Stone is making a movie about their husbands’ deaths and that two officers who survived are making money from the film.Mr. Stone’s movie, called “World Trade Center,” tells the story of five officers – Chris Amoroso, Will Jimeno, John McLoughlin, Dominick Pezzulo, and Antonio Rodrigues – who worked together to rescue people during the terrorist attacks.The five men were crossing the underground concourse between the towers when the first skyscraper crumbled, killing Amoroso and Rodrigues. Pezzulo was attempting to free Messrs. Jimeno and McLoughlin, who both survived, from piles of rubble when he was killed by a piece of falling concrete when the second tower crumbled.Two of the widows, Jamie Amoroso and Jeannette Pezzulo, are angry with Paramount Pictures, saying they don’t want their children to see how their fathers died and to share the last seconds of their husbands’ lives with millions of moviegoers.Paramount invited the two women to meet with its executives last summer, but only Ms. Amoroso went. She said she told the studio that she didn’t want her husband to be included in the film and that Ms. Pezzulo felt the same about her deceased spouse.“I did not need a movie to tell me what a hero my husband was,” Ms. Amoroso told the Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark.But one of the movie’s producers, Stacey Sher, said the studio did not learn until months later that the widows objected to having their husbands’ stories told. Ms. Sher said the studio agreed not to discuss the women or their children in the film, but Paramount says that removing any mention of the two officers from the movie or changing their names would dishonor their memory.Ms. Amoroso and Ms. Pezzulo said they were also offended that Messrs. Jimeno and McLoughlin are being paid to be consultants on the film, which stars Nicolas Cage. Mr. Jimeno declined to discuss how much he received and Mr. McLoughlin declined to comment at all about the film, but a publicist for Paramount said the officers received less than $250,000 for their participation.The women contend that Mr. Jimeno befriended them after the attacks solely to gain information about their husbands for the film and that he didn’t tell them he was working with Paramount for two years.“My thing is: This man died for you. How do you do this to this family?” Ms. Pezzulo said.Mr. Jimeno, of Chester, told the newspaper that he felt it was important that the story was told and told accurately.“The film only holds the truth and has nothing to do with their personal lives. I never crossed the line,” Mr. Jimeno said. “It’s our story too. We’re also victims of this.”The Oliver Stone film is one of a number of September 11-related films currently in the works.

Widows of Officers Killed on 9/11 Upset With Stone’s Movie

Widows of Officers Killed on 9/11 Upset With Stone’s Movie

More from the New York Sun

America’s Slow Conversion to a Rugby Nation

Trump Urged To Ask Communist China’s Party Boss To Free American Scholar Detained in June

Welcome to Washington: AI Regulation Poised To Dominate the New Congress

Zelensky Bombs Moscow Refinery Prior to Meeting With Trump at New York This Week

Top Republicans Defend Trump Decision To Bar Major Outlets From White House Grounds

Jack Smith Exhorts Ivy Leaguers To ‘Run Toward the Fire,’ Vents That Trump’s DOJ ‘Angers Me’

Democrats’ Midterm Chances Threatened by Their Embrace of the Far Left’s Least Popular Impulses

The Long Hangover of the Roaring Eighties

More from the New York Sun

America’s Slow Conversion to a Rugby Nation

Trump Urged To Ask Communist China’s Party Boss To Free American Scholar Detained in June

Welcome to Washington: AI Regulation Poised To Dominate the New Congress

Zelensky Bombs Moscow Refinery Prior to Meeting With Trump at New York This Week

Top Republicans Defend Trump Decision To Bar Major Outlets From White House Grounds

Jack Smith Exhorts Ivy Leaguers To ‘Run Toward the Fire,’ Vents That Trump’s DOJ ‘Angers Me’

Democrats’ Midterm Chances Threatened by Their Embrace of the Far Left’s Least Popular Impulses

The Long Hangover of the Roaring Eighties