When it comes to this year’s IT movie, the last thing you would probably expect to hear about would be controversy for the film coming from Burger King. Apparently, people in Russia’s division of the company are mad about the film – and want it banned.
The Russian division of Burger King has filed a complaint with the country’s Federal Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS), and have demanded that IT be banned in the country. Their reason? Pennywise the Clown looks like Ronald McDonald and therefore, it works as an advertisement for the rival company.
A spokesperson for FAS had the following to say about the matter while speaking with The Hollywod Reporter:
“We can’t be concerned with the content of the film because the writer and director have their own creative understanding of any character.”
I personally don’t see any similarities here, aside from both of the characters being clowns. One is depicted as a friendly clown, while one is a clown that eats children. I highly doubt the actor playing Ronald McDonald took the same approach as Pennywise actor Bill Skarsgård, whose goal was to scare an entire generation:
“In order for this movie to be as effective as the book and the series, I have to scare a whole generation. My take was that Pennywise functions very simply. Nothing much is going on in terms of what he’s thinking — he’s animalistic and instinctive.”
They weren’t the first to express displeasure with the film, however, as real-life clowns were upset with the movie as well. It was so bad, the World Clown Association released this statement:
“People had school shows and library shows that were canceled. That’s very unfortunate. The very public we’re trying to deliver positive and important messages to aren’t getting them. They’re different from regular people — they’re costumed characters. But no one is picking on the Santa Clauses, because that would ruin the retail business. It would ruin Christmas for everybody.”
IT’s director Andy Muschietti responded to the real-life clown controversy by saying:
“Tell me about it. Yeah, I have a clown that is harassing me–eh, not harassing me. Look, to be fair, he’s a good guy, but he’s been asking me, ‘Why would I do this?’ I was very polite and said like, ‘Well, kids are scared of clowns.’ I think if anything, clowns are benefiting from the publicity. Clown fear is coming back, but you know there’s scary clowns and there’s nice clowns. So they should think about what kind of clown they should be, right? I mean, if they scare kids they scare kids because they are scary.”
IT is currently playing in theaters everywhere – though that might not be the case for Russia soon.