US attacks 'could be filmed'

Jerry Bruckheimer met the BBC's Sarah Montague

Jerry Bruckheimer, the Hollywood film producer has said he would be prepared to make a film about 11 September attacks.

In an interview with Sarah Montague for BBC HARDtalk, Bruckheimer said that the heroics of the men and women who survived or didn't survive was a story worth telling.

"There's going to be some wonderful stories that's come out of there," he said.

The 11th of September changed the world. From my perspective, everything is different. We can't travel the same, we look at things much differently now.

Jerry Bruckheimer

He believes 11 September has completely changed the way he looks at the world.

"The 11th of September changed the world. From my perspective, everything is different. We can't travel the same, we look at things much differently now."

Jerry Bruckheimer is responsible for producing Black Hawk Down, which is tipped to win an award at this year's Oscars.

Doomed mission

The film follows a doomed 1993 US special forces mission in Somalia in which 19 US soldiers and 1,000 Somalis were killed. The conflict involved the American's worst fire fight since Vietnam.

Black Hawk Down has been accused of exaggerating US heroism

The film was released across the US last Friday, taking $29m (£20m) at box offices during the weekend, according to studio estimates.

However, the film's release was brought forward by six weeks, which has led to accusations that the studio wants to cash in on US patriotic feeling.

Mr Bruckheimer denied the claims.

"You're talking six weeks, how can six weeks be cashing in on timing?

"The only reason we bought it out earlier is [that it was] decided that the film was so good that they wanted to take advantage of some accolades which you can get by the end of the year."

Truth

He denied rumours that political pressure was involved in the decision to bring the film's release forward, following unconfirmed reports that the US could target terrorist strongholds in Somalia as part of its continuing war on terrorism.

Ewan McGregor plays Grimes in Black Hawk Down

Bruckheimer also rejected claims that the film is one sided, stating that it is a portrayal of the truth "from our own point of view", but that "the truth has many sides".

Black Hawk Down was an ambitious project for Bruckheimer.

Designers built an exact replica of parts of Mogadishu in Morocco and used photographs to recreate detail.

The film itself contains more than one-and-a-half hours of battle scenes.

Illustrious career

Jerry Bruckheimer has been at the top of Hollywood for 20 years and is well known for a string of box office hits including Top Gun, Armageddon and Pearl Harbor.

He admits that he likes making a wide range of films:

"I'm no different from any theatregoer. You sometimes want some light theatre and you sometimes want some serious theatre. So I want to make a broad range of entertainment.

"The only films I don't understand are horror films. I don't go to see them, I don't know how to make them, I dabbled in it once and that was it."

You can hear the HARDtalk interview in full at the following times:

BBC News 24
22 January 0430GMT, repeated 2230 GMT

BBC World
22 January 0430GMT, repeated 1130GMT, 1630GMT, 1930GMT, 0030GMT.