Director Zack Snyder will keep a tornado scene in his Superman movie Man of Steel even though it is eerily similar to the real-life level 5 tornado that recently ripped through Moore, Oklahoma.
On May 20, a mile-wide tornado with 210 mph winds whipped through Moore, Oklahoma, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others. Billions of dollars’ worth of damages were also left in its wake, reported Earth Sky.
Then, just last week, another level 5 tornado touched down and took 24 more lives.
Despite this real-life tragedy, director Snyder stands firm behind his decision to keep the disaster scene in Man of Steel because it is a crucial plot point in Superman’s story, reports the Huffington Post.
Snyder explained, “He’s changed by those events. If anything, we feel like our Superman has a connection – not to make light of it – to the kind of grief that happens during those kinds of natural disasters. Also, in a sad way, even Superman can’t change that.”
The trailer for the movie shows a brief glimpse of the behemoth tornado whirling through a small town, ripping up trees, flipping over cars and swallowing up a school bus.
In 2012, there was another instance where a Hollywood film unfortunately coincided with a real-life tragedy.
The movie Gangster Squad was released shortly before the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado where a man opened fire during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises.
Gangster Squad had an eerily similar scene in which there was a shootout between some gangsters and cops inside of a movie theater.
In this situation, things were handled much differently. The trailer showing this scene was swiftly removed from all forms of advertisements and the film’s director, Ruben Fleischer, did a reshoot so that the gun battle took place at an open market in Chinatown, Moviefone reported.
Fleischer said redoing the scene was the “appropriate and responsible thing to do” because the shooting in Colorado was “an unspeakable tragedy.”
However, Man of Steel has re-opened a discussion about whether it is insensitive to keep such fictional scenes that parallel real devastation and loss.
The film is set for release June 14
image: YouTube