Foxnews.com had already announced the start of work on "The Path to 9/11" (PT 9/11) by May 2, 2005.
The various religious groups boycotting 'ended' (or some varriation on 'ended') their boycotts starting the next month, with among others;
* American Family Association 'ending' thier boycott at the tail end of May with the publication of their June Newsletter.
* Southern Baptist Convention ending thier boycott June 22nd, 2005
Filming on "The Path to 9/11" began July 7th, 2005, as pointed out in this
JULY 8th, 2005 piece from Foxnews.com.
From the beginning, all the way back in the May 2nd, 2005 Foxnews.com piece, PT 9/11 was referred to as "fictionalized";
Nevertheless, ABC seems to be readying a major and secret "fictionalized" multi-parter about the history of terrorism, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the disasters of Sept. 11, 2001.
The wingnut boycott was originally kicked off by folks like the American Life League and then later, the Catholic League back in 1995. Other groups joined in later, such as the Assemblies of God (started 1996), American Family Association (1996), Focus on the Family (1997) among many others.
Operation Rescue/Operation Save America staged a weeklong event in Orlando in 1998, with legal support from the American Family Association, which led to AFA BRIEFLY withdrawing their support from OR/OSA.
My partner and I were there for it, and some documents from that period live on our our website, barf.org specifically, see for an archive of materials and here for our analysis.
American Family Association (AFA) announced the so called 'end' of their 9 year long Disney boycott in their June 2005 ministry newsletter. Keep in mind that for Don Wildmon, this was not much of an end, "as far as we're concerned, Disney is on probation." and "We encourage people to continue boycotting if they believe that to be the right thing to do."" (from the same link). Thus the so called 'end' was in fact nothing more than a shift in strategy, from the boycott being an "AFA ministry emphasis" to an individual or family tactic.
The newsletter cited 3 'hopeful signs' that contributed to the end of their boycott;
1.the pending departure of Disney chief Michael Eisner
2.the split between Disney and Miramax films
and
3.Disney' involvement in the film production of C.S. Lewis's "the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". (With Walden media)
Others here on dKos have pointed out Disney's outreach to the wingnut community from that period, particularly around the "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" film, but here's an interesting citation;
According to an article by the Orlando Sentinel's Mark Pinsky, Disney has mounted a 10-month marketing campaign to reach the Christian community with news of the film. Toward that end, Disney has hired two Christian marketing companies, Motive Marketing and Grace Hill Media.
Pinsky noted that Disney's involvement with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe represented a remarkable change. "For Disney, the Christian marketing campaign represents a sharp break with corporate policy. Apart from Disney World's annual Night of Joy concerts, the film is the company's first undertaking with the religious community," Pinsky said, adding that Disney "has carefully avoided religion for most of its history."
In taking the step of marketing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the Christian community, he said, Disney may have disarmed much of the antagonism towards the company that led many evangelicals to boycott the company.
On June 22nd, 2005, The Southern Baptist Convention ended their Disney boycott, citing "changes in Disney leadership, and other potentially positive developments."
Note that the boycotts ended AFTER this May 2nd, 2005 Foxnews.com piece about the upcomming ABC miniseries, what would go on to become PT 9/11.
Clearly even Fox's tone has changed quite a bit from back when they first spoke of the ABC piece;
Here it comes, the miniseries no one wanted to see.
Notice that even as early as May 2005, this was clearly being refered to as a FICTIONALIZED piece-
Nevertheless, ABC seems to be readying a major and secret "fictionalized" multi-parter about the history of terrorism, from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing to the disasters of Sept. 11, 2001.
This
JULY 8th, 2005 piece from Foxnews.com is another early mention of the beginnings of work on "The Path to 9/11", which points out filming began on July 7th;
In a sad twist, the project began filming in Toronto on July 7, the day of the London terrorist attacks.
Most importantly, note the Stephen McPherson/ABC comment, from that period-
"For us, having talked to Thomas Kean and the whole commission, we just felt it was a really important thing to bring to air," ABC chief Stephen McPherson told The Post yesterday at the TV critics press tour in L.A.