Today Mr. Robot on the USA Network was set to air its final episode of the season. But at the beginning of the episode a title card came on stating that due to a scene in the episode that’s similar to today’s shooting (of a TV reporter in Virginia), they would show the episode at another time, next Wednesday.
I recall something similar with the Reagan shooting, but can’t remember details. Was it Last American Hero changing the hero’s name from Hinkly? Have there been other shows impacted by a news story, beyond the obvious huge news stories like 9/11?
Not quite the same thing, but similar: Kennedy’s assassination prompted a change in a line of dialogue in Dr. Strangelove, from “A guy could have a good time in Dallas with this stuff!” to “A guy could have a good time in Vegas with this stuff!” (Paraphrasing the line from memory, here.)
The ending of the original Spider-Man movie was also reshot in the wake of 9/11. The original ending had Spider-Man spinning a giant web between the two towers to catch the villain’s helicopter.
I vaguely remember that one of the big crime dramas (e.g., Law & Order, CSI) planned a big crossover event that was cancelled because of the 9/11 attacks.
Also, a TV broadcast of the Chevy Chase movie Foul Play in 1981 was postponed or canceled because of an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.
Not a movie or TV episode, but Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2002 was scheduled to released in October 2001. But one of the things it allowed players to do was to try to fly a plane between the WTC towers. And it was a difficult stunt, so many times players would end up crashing their plane into one of the towers.
Somebody wisely decided to postpone the release and remove this aspect of the program.
It was The Greatest American Hero, they briefly changed the characters last name from Hinkley to Hanley but they avoided using any last name. like having the students call him Mister H. whenever they could get away with it. I hated that they changed his name, did we think we couldn’t tell the difference between a fictional character and the guy who shot the president?
The movie Foul Play, with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase, was scheduled to run on network tv the evening of the day John Paul II was nearly killed by an assassin. It’s plot involves a plan to kill the Pope. I think that a movie version of Les Miserables was shown in it’s place.
The Schwartzenegger movie Collateral Damage was supposed to be released soon after 911 but got pushed back. The trailer was pulled because it showed a bomb attack and a scene with a plane hijacking was cut out completely. And the movie was awful but that had nothing to do with world events.
The release of the movie Big Trouble (based on the Dave Barry book), originally scheduled for the end of 2001, got pushed back because of the World Trade Center attack:
(I wonder about another Dave Barry thing that ties into the WTC bombing. In his 1995 book Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys he remarks about an acquaintance who is heavily into fireworks that “If he had been involved with those people who tried to bomb the World Trade Center, we’d now have the World Trade Hole.” He was referring to the Feb. 26 1993 attempt to bring down the WTC using a bomb in a truck left in the underground parking garage of the WTC.
I haven’t seen the book reprinted since 2001. Does anyone know if it has been? If so, were those words removed? The work has appeared as an audiobook since, and I’ll bet that has been excised, but I haven’t heard it. He also released a movie based on the book, but that wouldn’t have had to include that line, regardless of circumstances.
I seem to recall that the very first episode of “24”, which involved a terrorist blowing up an airliner, was toned down due to 9/11. I don’t think they changed the plot but I think they avoided actually showing the plane exploding.
Was it? Wikipedia says it was launched 80 seconds late due to extended news coverage. It aired the day after his assassination, but that was its original air-date.
The release of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was delayed over a month after JFK’s assassination, as the movie studio decided the country wasn’t in the mood for a dark comedy about nuclear war. Also, when Maj. Kong reads through the survival kit’s contents, his original line of dialogue was: “Shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff!” “Dallas” was changed to “Vegas” before the film’s release.
They also changed the ending in the War Room. Originally President Muffley was supposed to fall during the Pie Fight, and Turgidson says “Gentlemen, our President has Fallen!” That had to go.