Paramount cuts trailer’s shuttle scene

Citing this weekend’s shuttle tragedy, Paramount Pictures has decided to re-edit the trailer for its upcoming apocalyptic film, “The Core,” because of a brief scene involving a shuttle-like vehicle.

The movie, which does not involve the explosion of a spacecraft and will not be re-edited, includes such scenes as the Golden Gate Bridge collapsing amid mass environmental chaos that erupts when the Earth’s core stops rotating, threatening to destroy the planet. The film stars Hilary Swank as an astronaut who must venture into the Earth’s core and explode a nuclear device to restore the Earth’s core to normal.

Paramount had asked theaters to pull the original trailer after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated over the southwestern United States, killing all seven astronauts. On Monday, the studio released a brief statement saying it would remove all references to the space shuttle in the new trailer. The studio said it will not delay the March 28 release of the film.

Meanwhile, ABC pulled the TV movie that was to air at 8 p.m. Thursday, “NTSB: The Crash of Flight 323,” which focuses on the work of the National Transportation Safety Board. The film had been postponed once before in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in 2001. No new air date was set. ABC will run a documentary about pop singer Michael Jackson instead.