Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles burning New York building poster causes 9/11 backlash
Paramount Australia is facing a PR backlash after it promoted the new ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ movie with a poster showing the team jumping from a burning New York building, which coincided with an 11 September release date in Australia.
The poster is reminiscent of those who jumped from the burning towers
The poster, now removed from the movie studio’s Twitter account, created a storm of controversy on social media further fuelled by the fact ten Australians died in the attacks.
The image, reminiscent of the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks, was promoted with the comment: “Check out the official poster for #TMNT in cinemas September 11!”
Heh. @ParamountAU deleted the TMNT 9/11 tweet. Here's a screengrab (h/t @lukewhitston @LaurakBuzz pic.twitter.com/RmULSy6Tvb
— Bob Chipman (@the_moviebob) July 29, 2014
The franchise reboot, which was directed by Michael Bay, will be released in the US first. Paramount's American branch promoted the movie with a different poster so backlash to the insensitive mishap was not nearly as strong in the US.
One Twitter commenter called it the “most ill-advised movie Tweet in history”.