Spielberg Lands on Cutting Room Floor

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/02/2002 at 01:00 PM EDT

"Men in Black II" will not feature the filmmaker in the baseball cap. The New York Times reports that a satiric vignette about Steven Spielberg did not make it to the final cut of the sequel to the 1997 sci-fi comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. The scene, says The Times, was shot for inclusion at the very beginning of the film, and "MIB II" director Barry Sonnenfeld, 49, described it as featuring a space alien opening a magazine, stumbling across a photo of Spielberg and reacting negatively. (Spielberg's previous work with aliens includes "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T.") As Spielberg, 55, told The Times, "Barry said, 'Would you mind if an alien spit green goo in your face?' I said, 'Could it be yellow?' That's how Barry let me know he was going to make fun of me in the movie." Only the scene was snipped from the fast-paced film, which runs well under 90 minutes. Still, there is a Spielberg gag that remains in the finished product. After a spaceship is shown clumsily rising into the skies thanks to very apparent marionette-like wires, Smith quips onscreen: "It looks like Spielberg's work." "MIB II" opens Friday.