NYC theater pulls
United 93 trailer

A New York City movie theater has pulled the trailer for United 93 , which chronicles in real time the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed into a Western Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. The AMC Loews Lincoln Square 12 theater in Manhattan said it 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, meanwhile, said it would go ahead with plans to show the trailer for the thriller, which is scheduled to open in theaters on April 28. Adam Fogelson, Universal's president of marketing, said the trailer would be shown only before R-rated movies or "grown-up" PG-13 films. "The film is not sanitized or softened, it's an honest and real look" at the events of Flight 93, Fogelson told The New York Times in Tuesday editions. "If I sanitized the trailer beyond what's there, am I suggesting that the experience will be less real than what the movie itself is? We as a company feel comfortable that it is a responsible and fair way to show what's coming."

United 93 is scheduled to make its world premiere on opening night at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The festival, which was created to help lower Manhattan recover economically from the attacks, begins April 25 and runs through May 7.

The trailer begins with images of passengers--including gay rugby player Mark Bingham, played by Cheyenne Jackson--boarding the plane on a sunny morning and builds to a disturbing scene that includes actual news video of a plane about to hit one of the World Trade Center towers. It then returns inside Flight 93 as terrorists begin hijacking it and a passenger calls his family to tell them of the impending disaster. The Families of Flight 93 have said that Universal Pictures will donate 10% of the first three days' grosses to the memorial. (AP, with additional reporting by The Advocate)