Los Angeles area residents were not amused this week after billboards went up around the city featuring a young woman pictured in various unsavory scenarios including “Abduction,” “Torture” and “Termination.” The icky ads were part of a campaign for an upcoming horror flick called “Captivity,” but, garsh, turns out it was all a horrible mistake! The production company, After Dark Films, said that the “wrong files” were sent to the printer, who then apparently went ahead and just made a bunch of billboards without asking anybody, and besides, we were all in Las Vegas when it happened! After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon went so far as to issue a statement saying that he, personally, “wasn’t going to go with this campaign,” since it was “OTP,” which is Hollywood-speak for “over the top,” I can’t believe you didn’t already know that.
Anyone who’s ever worked at even the lowliest ad agency, production house, or print shop knows there is no possible way anything ever gets done without about 10,000 proofs, endless back-and-forths, and everyone from the board to the receptionist signing off. Whether they knew the campaign would immediately be taken down, or were just completely clueless, it’s hard to fathom how it could have actually been a mistake.
But, hooray! It turns out everyone, everywhere is wrong about everything: Solomon says that, sure, the movie has a woman in a cage, but really, it’s “about female empowerment.” So, parents everywhere, get your young daughters to LA, quick, so they can be empowered by the billboards before they’re taken down this afternoon!
