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Shopping Centers Today -> January 2002
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HOLLYWOOD MALL-BOMBING FILM GREETED WITH BOOS BY INDUSTRY
By Debra Hazel
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| Jennifer Lopez |
Usually, developers are more than happy to have films shot in their shopping centers, but that is not the case with a movie scheduled to begin production in June.
In the proposed movie, “Tick-Tock,” scheduled to star Jennifer Lopez and Samuel L. Jackson, an FBI agent (Lopez) spends most of the film attempting — and failing — to defuse bombs at three different malls in the Los Angeles area.
Sony Corp.’s Columbia Pictures approached several companies to use Los Angeles area malls as locations before and shortly after Sept. 11. Westfield America, which has seven malls in metro Los Angeles and managed the shopping complex at the World Trade Center, was solicited just days after the attack.
“Our immediate response was to decline,” said Catharine Dickey, Westfield’s vice president of corporate communications. A Westfield executive died in the Sept. 11 atrocity.
Westfield’s decision would not have been different on Sept. 10, Dickey added.
“Regardless of Sept. 11, we would not have approved of the premise,” she said.
Beverly Center, a frequent location and shopping destination for the film community, was contacted before Sept. 11; Bloomfield Hills, Mich.-based Taubman Centers, its owner/manager, was waiting for a script to review when the attacks took place, and then declined.
“We just felt it would be inappropriate,” said Karen MacDonald, Taubman’s director of communications.
In addition to the destruction of the World Trade Center mall, the industry had to contend with a hoax circulating on the Internet that claimed terrorists would attack malls on Halloween.
ICSC President and CEO Michael P. Kercheval has also protested the movie’s premise in letters to Columbia Pictures Chairwoman Amy Pascal.
“Normally, we’re happy to comply with such requests. Generally, it’s positive publicity for the industry,” Kercheval said. “But a key issue is that we were contacted within days of Sept. 11, when É a shopping center had just been blown up.”
Not only is the movie’s story line in bad taste, but it could be bad for the film business, Kercheval argued.
“This would be particularly damaging for theater operators, almost half of whom are located in shopping centers,” he wrote Pascal. “The damage to your industry could be enormous, as a film like this would actually scare people away from theaters — a bit like showing movies of plane crashes to passengers at air terminals.”
As of January 2001, there were 2,455 movie theaters located at U.S. shopping centers, according to the National Research Bureau, Wilton, Conn.
“Every one of my theaters is in a shopping center,” said R. Keith Thompson, principal of Knoxville, Tenn.-based consulting firm R-T Associates and head of the newly formed Phoenix Theaters cinema chain. “Every one we’re negotiating to build or take over is in a shopping center.”
For owners of both theaters and shopping centers the plot is “scary,” he said.
Films are not the only product that Sony sells in shopping centers, Kercheval observed, noting that the company could be hurt by a drop in mall traffic.
“Our industry will do everything it can to not support a violent film depicting the bombing of shopping malls,” he wrote Sony Pictures Entertainment. “Our role is not to opine on the artistic virtues of your films, but it is our role to fight any effort to drive Americans away from where they shop: their malls, shopping centers, downtowns and stores.”
But, in a response, the filmmakers said they intend to go ahead with the project.
Columbia did not respond to SCT’s requests for an interview.
In the past shopping centers have frequently provided the backdrop for films. “Terminator 2,” and “Scenes from a Mall,” as well as “Valley Girl” and “Volcano” have been shot on location at centers from Los Angeles to Stamford, Conn. And shopping centers are more than happy with the positive publicity and fees film studios pay to use the facilities. Several developers were reluctant to comment on the record for this article for fear of damaging that relationship.
Government agencies such as the FBI and U.S. military often permit their facilities to be used as locations after a script has been changed to their liking. But, given the plot of “Tick-Tock,” the moviemakers will have a hard time getting approval, whatever changes they make, observers said. Denied access to a real shopping center, filmmakers determined to go ahead with the project would have to build elaborate, expensive mall sets.
The movie, originally scheduled to begin filming in December 2001, was moved to June following the terrorist attacks. To what extent the film’s producers will respond to the industry’s concerns is debatable. In the past some filmmakers have met with groups opposing projects merely as a courtesy, and occasionally they have altered their product to make it more acceptable.
Kercheval said he hopes movie executives will see the harm the film could do to both the shopping and film industries.
“If someone suggests that if you go into a mall it will be blown up, is that good for the industry?” Kercheval asked. “We have to say this is something we cannot support. It will hurt the value of shopping centers.”
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