CBS Buys Rights to Unseen Sept. 11 Video

CBS has acquired rights to dramatic, never-broadcast footage of the Sept. 11 attack on New York’s World Trade Center--shot by two French brothers who were on the scene--that will be turned into a two-hour special to be broadcast March 10.

Filmmaker Jules Naudet was at the New York site working on a documentary about the brotherhood of New York firefighters when the attacks took place; his brother, Gedeon, arrived later with additional members of the Ladder 1 firefighters. Their footage, which includes 45 minutes of rescue efforts from inside one of the towers before it collapsed, is thought to be the only known video of the plane that hit the first tower and has been hotly sought by other networks, including ABC and HBO.

CBS declined to say how much it paid for the rights, but Jim Wiatt, president and co-chief executive officer of the William Morris Agency, which made the deal, said there was no bidding war and that “the intent was to pay for the cost of the film and donate money to firemen. This is not a money-making project.”

The footage landed at CBS, he said, at the suggestion of Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, who was advising the brothers because of a personal relationship. Carter will be an executive producer of the TV project, and the magazine will run an interview with the Naudets in March.

The broadcast will be a joint effort of CBS’ news and entertainment divisions. Susan Zirinsky, executive producer of CBS News’ “48 Hours,” is also one of the executive producers, along with the brothers.

Zirinsky said it isn’t an official CBS News production because the brothers wanted it to be a fund-raiser and as such “does not fit under the CBS News umbrella.”

There will be no dramatized moments, she said, as had been discussed at other networks.

The producers are drawing from the full 140 hours of footage shot by the brothers to craft what Zirinsky called “a kind of witness to history, a camera at ground zero.” A snippet of the footage was released at the time of the attacks, but the rest of it has never before been seen publicly.

The deal represents CBS’ second prime-time entertainment project related to the Sept. 11 attacks, following confirmed plans for a two-hour movie from author-filmmaker Lawrence Schiller that will document events surrounding United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed that day in rural Pennsylvania. CBS officials were also pitched a comedy series with a Sept. 11 plot line (a couple united after their spouses died in the attacks), but that project has since fizzled.

The Naudet brothers and firefighter James Hanlon, another executive producer, will donate proceeds from the production to the Uniformed Firefighters Assn. Scholarship Fund. The project is also expected to include an appeal to the public for donations.