How do you advertise a horror movie? Apparently, without the horror.
Controversial posters promoting the upcoming Lionsgate release Captivity were being quickly removed from billboards across Los Angeles and New York after a public uproar over the sadistic nature of the ads, which depicted star Elisha Cuthbert's character being abducted, tortured and killed.
The distributor and its producing partner, After Dark Films, made the decision to take down more than 30 billboards in and around L.A. and remove approximately 1,400 Big Apple taxicab tops after receiving a slew of complaints from callers, particularly women and upset parents, objecting to what they considered to be four ghastly and gratuitous images hyping the R-rated Roland Joffe-directed film, which unspools May 18.
In the first panel, titled "Abduction," the blond beauty looks petrified, with her mouth covered by what appears to be a black gloved hand; the second panel, "Confinement," shows the character incarcerated behind a chain-link fence, a gnarled and bloody thumb poking through; the third, "Torture," has the female victim on her back, her face hidden within a white cast and red tubes going up her nose; while the fourth panel, "Termination," portrays what looks like a limp body hanging over a table, implying she'd been murdered.
Lionsgate spokesman Peter Wilkes said the studio neither knew about the content of the ads nor approved them, noting that Captivity's promotional campaign was being supervised independently by After Dark.
"This film was done in association with After Dark Films. The nature of the association allows After Dark autonomy over their marketing materials, and therefore we neither saw nor approved this billboard before it was posted," Wilkes said in a statement. "Once aware of the materials and the reaction to them, we immediately asked After Dark to remove the billboards, to which they immediately and cooperatively responded. The billboards were all scheduled to be down as of today."
The Lionsgate rep reported first getting calls about the advertisements on Mar. 15, two days after the billboards had gone up.
Before cynical moviegoers go thinking the whole thing was a publicity stunt aimed at ginning up some publicity for their latest cinematic offering, supposedly chastened After Dark executives claimed they were in the dark themselves about the ads as they were attending the annual exhibitors ShoWest confab in Las Vegas last week.
After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon told the Hollywood Reporter that his company never intended to put the gruesome promos up, saying the wrong designs were sent to the printer. The printing company then forwarded them on to the billboard folks who distributed the signs without first getting his consent.
"Personally, I wasn't going to go with this campaign. I thought it was OTP [over the top]," Solomon said, noting that Lionsgate had not seen the plans for the billboards because they weren't designs he thought they'd use. "Nothing like this can ever happen again."
In his company's defense, Solomon tried to argue that the controversial images hyping Captivity were not moments that accurately represented what the flick is about.
"This movie is certainly a horror movie and it's about abduction, but it's also about female empowerment," he said. "We reshot the ending so the main character ends up in as much of a positive situation as the situation could allow. There is no rape or nudity in it, though it should be an R-rated movie. For the audience it's made for, it's satisfying to that audience. I'm sure that's not the same audience that's complaining about the billboards."
He may be right about that. While After Dark and Lionsgate are obviously going for the same group of moviegoers who made the Saw franchise such a big hit (Saw II, by the way, also sparked controversy over movie posters featuring two severed fingers a few years ago), not everyone who comes across the Captivity ads is in the target demographic.
The Los Angeles Times made that clear in a story it ran on Sunday, featuring interviews with several children shaken by the horrible depictions of torture they happened to see on their way home from school last week.
"What a graphic, nasty billboard," 13-year-old Shanise Laurent told the newspaper, while her 11-year-old sister, Rachel, and their friends expressed their agreement.
Some adults were also not happy about being a captive audience either."For any woman, it's flat out abusive to be forced to look [at the ads] while trying to drive in this city," actress and comedian Lora Cain noted.
Cain noted that the way the billboard panels were laid out progressively in four panels as if telling a story was especially offensive.
"The message is that this is what you do with women. You kidnap them, you confine them, you torture them and you kill them," she added.
Whether After Dark and Lionsgate will face any consequences of their campaign is still an open question.
Neither company is a signatory to the Motion Picture Association of America, the industry endorsed parent-led group which created the movie ratings system. However if After Dark and Lionsgate want Captivity to do well at the box office, they have to submit the film for a rating (most theaters typically refuse to book unrated movies), as well as accompanying promotional materials to the MPAA's advertising administration for approval.
An MPAA official did not return a phone call seeking comment. However, a source close to the organization told the Hollywood Reporter that the MPAA had not given its approval for the four-panel concepts. As a result, the MPAA could potentially deny a rating to Captivity as punishment for the billboard brouhaha.
However, Solomon pointed out that his company was already losing money by having to remove the ads. He also said the MPAA had already approved a toned-down version of Captivity's "Confinement" panel for bus shelters and that After Dark plans to do damage control and ensure they're in compliance with all the necessary guidelines.
"We are working fully to cooperate with them," the exec told the trade. "We intend to become a signatory. We want to play by the rules."
It's worth noting that Solomon's outfit recently snagged the North American distribution rights to the suicide-themed comedy, Wristcutters, about young adults who kill themselves and end up stuck in purgatory, which debuted at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
Just last week, After Dark made no bones about saying it was planning another attention-grabbing marketing campaign, this time featuring signage of characters doing themselves in by various methods, including jumping off bridges or electrocuting or hanging themselves.
Now it seems that campaign might itself meet an untimely demise.