The Hard Look Back

Denis Leary, cocreator and star of the FX series Rescue Me, which deals with the ongoing impact of 9/11 on New York City firefighters, is not entirely comfortable with the conjectural approach these films will take. ''I had a friend who was in the plane that went into the second tower, so my head has imagined many times what he was doing, what he was thinking, what he was saying,'' Leary explains. ''And you have to remember, it's about the kids: They don't want to see an actor playing their father dying in what may have been the circumstances. That's fiction versus reality.''

The studios defend their choices. Sources close to the Stone movie insist that unlike his rabble-rousing political films, this one is an uplifting story told from the point of view of the two officers. Universal acknowledges the challenging nature of Flight 93, but reminds skeptics of Greengrass' deft touch with 2002's haunting Bloody Sunday, about the 1972 Irish massacre by British troops. ''We trust his insight and sensitivity,'' the studio says.

The underlying message of heroism in Stone's and Greengrass' features does seem a relatively safe entry point into such a raw subject. Of course, that's no guarantee of quality. The hero-in-tragedy genre has resulted in such creative misfires as 1968's The Green Berets and 2003's TV movie DC 9/11. But as ICM agent Robert Newman points out, it also produced Spielberg's Schindler's List. ''We've seen the death and destruction of 9/11, so to have an artist's interpretation that shows what humanity could accomplish, and the good within it, I don't think there's anything inappropriate about that.''

At the moment, Michael Shamberg, one of the producers of the Stone film, is simply asking to be given the benefit of the doubt. ''Everyone criticizes Hollywood for not making meaningful movies about the times we live in,'' he says. ''So why criticize us when we [try to] do them?''

FILMING 9/11
Respondents to an EW.com poll had misgivings about Hollywood's retellings

Is it exploitative for Hollywood to make 9/11-related movies?
55% Yes
45% No

Is it disrespectful to make a film based on the events of Flight 93 — which crashed in a field in Pennsylvania — when no one knows for sure what happened during the flight?
59% Yes
41% No

Are 9/11-themed movies different from other films depicting historical tragedies (the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, Rwandan genocide)?
68% Yes
32% No