‘The Mummy’ Posters Banned Across London After Being Deemed Too Disturbing
Outdoor posters for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy have been banned from appearing in their original form across parts of London after the U.K. Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that the images were too distressing for young children.
According to information published by the ASA on August 5, the regulator investigated several complaints about the film’s marketing campaign. The review covered outdoor posters, a television commercial, and a Prime Video advertisement. While the ASA ruled against the outdoor posters, it cleared the TV and streaming ads.
The watchdog said it received 30 complaints from members of the public. Many people believed the campaign was upsetting for both children and adults. The biggest concern focused on posters displayed on the London Underground and other public locations where people of all ages could see them.
The posters featured a close-up image of a mummified female figure with grey skin, cracked lips, one swollen eye, and cloth wrapped around her body with symbols that looked like ancient hieroglyphs.
After reviewing the image, the ASA decided it gave “a realistic impression of a dead child.” The regulator also said the cloth wrapped around the figure made that impression even stronger. Because the posters appeared in public places without age restrictions, including one location that could be seen from a children’s nursery, the ASA concluded they were likely to frighten young children.
As a result, the regulator ruled that the posters broke the U.K.’s advertising rules and ordered that they “must not appear in the form complained of.” It also told Warner Bros. to make sure future horror movie advertising that could scare young children is not placed in locations where they are likely to see it.
Warner Bros. defended the campaign during the investigation. The studio said the design of the poster was carefully planned to make the image less disturbing. It pointed out that the character had a neutral facial expression, one eye open, and was not shown inside a sarcophagus or tied down. Warner Bros. also explained that it follows an internal policy of keeping horror movie posters at least 100 meters away from schools, although that rule does not include nurseries.
The ASA also looked into another complaint that claimed the posters made light of child loss or ongoing conflicts around the world. However, the regulator rejected that argument. It said the posters clearly identified themselves as advertisements for a movie, giving viewers enough context to understand what they were looking at.
The television and Prime Video commercials were also part of the investigation, but the ASA reached a different decision. The ads tell the story of a family receiving a phone call about their daughter, who disappeared eight years earlier. During the call, the father asks why she is inside a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus. The ads end with the line, “Some Things Are Meant to Stay Buried.”
According to the ASA, those commercials were already limited to later evening broadcasts, with TV airings scheduled after 7:30 p.m. The regulator said those restrictions were enough to reduce the chances of young children seeing the ads. It also referred to audience data from Clearcast, which showed that child viewership during the TV campaign was well below the industry average.
Because of those safeguards, the ASA decided that the television and streaming advertisements were unlikely to cause serious distress and did not require any changes.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy opened in U.K. cinemas on April 17 and earned around $2.9 million at the local box office.
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