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Wahlberg apologizes for ‘insensitive’ 9/11 remarks

He’s been reading way too many movie scripts.

Box-office badass Mark Wahlberg created the perfect storm of controversy yesterday, saying in a new interview that “it wouldn’t have went down like it did” if he had been on one of the airplanes hijacked on 9/11.

But the Tinseltown tough guy quickly backed down, using a second take to “deeply apologize to the families of the victims” for his “insensitive” remarks, which read as if they came straight out of a lousy action-movie screenplay.

Wahlberg, usually Hollywood gold, started getting bad reviews as soon as his 9/11 fantasy comments to Men’s Journal magazine hit the Internet.

The Boston blowhard had reached the height of hubris suggesting that there was more that could have been done by passengers on the doomed flights.

“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did,” said Wahlberg, who was scheduled to be on one of the Boston-to-LA flights that hit the World Trade Center, but changed his plans.

“There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’ ”

The “Perfect Storm” star was quickly panned by relatives of real-life passengers who perished.

They reminded Wahlberg that there were genuine heroes who actually did take on the terrorists that day without the luxuries of hindsight or stunt doubles.

That included passengers of United Flight 93, the Newark-to-San Francisco flight that was commandeered by terrorists and headed for the US Capitol.

Brave passengers, sparked by the battle cry “Let’s roll!” stormed the cockpit and fought with hijackers before the plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

“What makes Wahlberg think he would have been a hero?” said Bill Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was killed in the north tower. “Do you honesty believe he would have gotten to the cockpit and flew the plane?”

Alice Hoagland, whose strapping, rugby-playing son Mark Bingham was among those who confronted the terrorists on Flight 93, said Wahlberg has no way of knowing what he would have done under the same circumstances.

“Mark Wahlberg has the luxury of knowing how the events of that morning unfolded,” Hoagland said.

“None of the innocent people aboard those flights had that luxury. The element of surprise was working against them, and it would’ve worked against Mark Wahlberg too, had he been a passenger or crew member.”

A chagrined Wahlberg, whose new film, “Contraband,” topped the box office last weekend, insisted there will be no shoot-from-the-lip sequel.

“To speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with, and to suggest I would have done anything differently than the passengers on that plane was irresponsible,” he said. “I deeply apologize to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive. It was certainly not my intention.”

Charles Wolf, whose wife, Katherine, was killed in the WTC north tower, said Wahlberg “needs to step out of his role and back into reality.”