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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Paramount

Paramount Australia 'deeply sorry' for 9/11 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' poster

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By John McCarthy | Opinion Editor

July 30, 2014 | 2 min read

Paramount Australia has apologised for a controversial ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ poster, promoting the September 11 release of the movie, showing the quartet jumping from a burning New York building in a scene reminiscent of the World Trade Centre attacks.

The post was quickly removed from Paramount social channels

Social networks went ablaze with users upset at the accidental insensitivity of the ad, branded one of the worst PR disasters in movie history by commentators.

The poster was tweeted to over 6m followers and stirred up a hive of complaints as ten Australians lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks.

Paramount deleted the tweet which said: “check out the official poster for #TMNT in cinemas September 11”.

They additionally removed the image from Facebook although onlookers managed to grab screenshots of the offending promotional material.

Paramount Australia issued the following statement: “We are deeply sorry to have used that artwork for the marketing materials promoting the September 11 opening in Australia.

"Combining that image and date was a mistake. We intended no offense and have taken immediate action to discontinue its use.”

The movie will be released a month earlier in the US.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Paramount

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