8 Upcoming Movies That Have Sparked Massive Controversy
1. Slender Man
Release Date: 18 May 2018
The Controversy: Not long after the first official trailer for Slender Man hit the web, an adverse reaction began to rear its head.
This stemmed from a real-world incident related to the film's titular character. The Slender Man - based on the popular internet meme created in 2009 - made headlines in 2014 after a 12-year-old girl was repeatedly stabbed by her two classmates, both of whom told authorities that Slender Man made them do it.
After the trailer was released, the father of one of the perpetrators spoke out against the film, claiming that it's popularizing a tragedy and will only remind the girls' families of the pain they went through.
Sony Pictures and Screen Gems have yet to respond to the father's comments - comments that many people backed up, slamming the studios for apparently favouring corporate greed over emotional repercussions.
One thing that a lot of people missed in all this commotion is that the Slender Man movie is not based on the incident involving the three girls - it's simply a story about the horror icon. True, the story does involve teenage girls, but that's hardly an exploitative connection to the stabbing.
Still, there'll be a dark cloud over the Slender Man movie when it opens later this year, whether it deserves it or not, and the fact that this character was involved in such a tragedy will not be forgotten so easily.