Forthcoming Hollywood movie Arrival caused unexpected political controversy when its promotional material shows one of Shanghai's landmark being integrated into Hong Kong’s skyline.
As seen in one of the movie's series of posters, whereby the Oriental Pearl Tower has undergone 'relocation' from Shanghai, China to Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. Consequently, the unsightly poster caused frustration and anger to many Hong Kongers while some of them claimed there was a political message hidden behind it.
Denis Villeneuve's Arrival will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Despite Paramount's swift reaction by extending its apologies for the error and even deleting the poster, many Facebook users continued to vent their dissatisfaction at the error on the film’s official page. The finger-pointing was subsequently shifted to a third-party vendor who had created the poster, leading some Facebook users to draw the conclusion that the vendor had a political agenda, and Photoshop sloppiness was not accepted as a valid excuse.
The film will premiere at Venice Film Festival this year. This particular poster was one of the twelve released this week by Paramount, depicting various landmarks with the tagline: “Why are they here?” The film stars Amy Adams as a linguist trying to communicate with aliens following their invasion of Planet Earth. Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker co-star with Adams.
