[bloodrayne]

Oliver Stone To Make First Major US Film About September 11

Los Angeles, California - Three-time Oscar winner Oliver Stone will direct superstar Nicholas Cage in the first major Hollywood movie about the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, producers announced.

The as-yet untitled film, which will be made for Paramount Pictures, will tell the true stories of the last two men to be rescued alive from the ruins of the collapsed World Trade Center in New York.

"It's an exploration of heroism in our country -- but is international at the same time in its humanity," said Stone, who won best director Academy Awards for his war epics "Born On the Fourth Of July" (1989) and 1986's "Platoon"

"It's a work of collective passion, a serious meditation on what happened, and carries within a compassion that heals," Stone said in a statement issued by producers.

Oscar-winning star Cage will take the lead role of New York Port Authority policeman Sergeant John McLoughlin, who was trapped along with one of his fellow officers in the mangled wreckage of one of the twin towers that crumbled after being hit by hijacked passenger jets.

"I feel someone had to tell the story of the people who were in the Trade Center before and after it collapsed," said McLoughlin of the plans to make his story into a major movie.

"The people involved in putting this movie together are truly making an extraordinary attempt to tell those stories and the stories of those who are no longer with us," he said.

The movie will focus on the two men as well as on their rescuers and families as they battle to find out what happened to their missing loved ones in the aftermath of the attacks that left a total of around 3,000 people dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

The film will be produced by Double Feature Films' Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher as well as Moritz Borman, while the screenplay has been penned by Andrea Berloff.

Cage won the best actor Academy Award for 1995's "Leaving Las Vegas," while stome won a third Oscar for the adapted screenplay of 1978's "Midnight Express."

The announcement of the first major film of the events four years ago came a day after a string of suspected Al-Qaeda bombings on London's transport network left at least 50 people dead, marking the worst attack on the British capital since World War II.