20th Century Fox Will Take Down Those Offensive ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Billboards

Following an outcry from fans and high profile voices in Hollywood, 20^th Century Fox has apologised for an X-Men: Apocalypse billboard depicting violence against women.

Late last week the film studio was criticised for several promotional billboards across the US, featuring villain En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac) strangling Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). One of the most vocal critics of the image was actress and filmmaker Rose McGowan, who told The Hollywood Reporter:

“There is a major problem when the men and women at 20th Century Fox think casual violence against women is the way to market a film. There is no context in the ad, just a woman getting strangled. The fact that no one flagged this is offensive and frankly, stupid.”

I'm weirded out that the only image I've seen for X-Men Apocalypses is a man choking a woman. I just saw it on a massive billboard.

— Max (@elecray7k) May 17, 2016

The sentiment was shared by writer and editor Jay Edidin, one half of the podcast Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men, who described it as gratuitous and offensive: “Offensive isn’t always necessarily bad, but this is offensive in ways that serve absolutely no purpose, and while it does depict a scene from the actual film, it’s also a terrible representation of the movie as a whole.”

The studio has since apologised, issuing a statement to media over the weekend. They said they would “never condone violence against women” and promised to remove all promotional materials that use the image. “We didn’t immediately realise the upsetting connotation of this image in print form,” the statement read.