Paramount has apologized to fans for the Australian promotional posters for “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” after many claimed the images were insensitive.
The Australian poster showed the TMNT crew jumping out of the burning New York City building. Under the TMNT movie logo was the date September 11, which is the release date for the film in Australia.
The posters outraged fans, with many claiming the images were insensitive to NYC’s terrorist attack. The image was shared on Paramount’s Australian Twitter account, but was immediately taken down. The studio has since released a statement apologizing about the poster.
“We are deeply sorry to have used that artwork for the marketing materials promoting the September 11 opening in Australia,” Paramount Australia said in a statement. “Combining that image and date was a mistake. We intended no offense and have taken immediate action to discontinue its use.”
What a thoughtful poster for 9/11. RT @ParamountAU Check out the official poster for #TMNT in cinemas September 11! pic.twitter.com/7LPYXHWlVB
— Martin Wefail (@wefail) July 29, 2014
In other TMNT news, the cast recently made an appearance at San Diego Comic-Con 2014. Megan Fox and Will Arnett take on the roles of April O’Neil and Vernon Fenwick respectively. The cast kept quiet about details regarding the film’s plot, but Fox did chat about April’s connection to the TMNT crew.
Fox told Comic Book Movie her character was always suspicious of her father. She knew his experiments weren’t as innocent as he wanted her to believe. However, it wasn’t until her father died that she was able to figure out what he was experimenting on.
“She loses him and it’s not until she starts hearing their names when she meets them on the roof that things start firing off,” Fox told Comic Book Movie. “[April] digs through all of her father’s old lab notes… and she discovers that these quite possibly are the little turtles that she used to look at in his lab before it burned down.”
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” will be released to theaters on Aug. 8 in the United States.
