Mayor Julie Morin along with fellow Canadian citizens are looking for assurance from the streaming service over the removal of the 2013 rail disaster from Sandra Bullock's post-apocalyptic drama.
- Jan 18, 2019
AceShowbiz - "Bird Box" producers have come under fire for using footage of a real-life rail disaster in the hit Netflix film.
Julie Morin, the mayor of Lac-Megantic in Canada, where 47 people were killed in a 2013 train accident, has requested a clip of video of the tragedy be removed from the post-apocalyptic drama starring Sandra Bullock.
"We are looking for assurances from Netflix that they are going to remove (the footage)," she told The Canadian Press. "You can be sure we are going to follow up on this, and our citizens are on our side."
"It's hard enough for our citizens to see these images when they are used normally and respectfully on the news. Just imagine, to have them used as fiction, as if they were invented."
According to the BBC, Netflix chiefs have no plans to remove the footage from the acclaimed streaming movie featuring Bullock as Malorie, a woman who must make it through a forest blindfolded with her two children, while being terrorised by supernatural creatures.
The offending clip, which lasts just a few seconds, appears early on in the film when Malorie is browsing TV news channels airing reports of a wave of "unexplained mass suicides" sweeping the world.
Film of the disaster has also been used in another Netflix project, the science-fiction series "Travelers", whose executive producer Carrie Mudd, apologised and promised to remove the footage, which had been acquired from an agency called Pond 5. Bosses at the agency apologised saying it had been "taken out of context and used in entertainment programming" and told the BBC they would be writing to customers who have purchased the clip and related video to warn them against using it for entertainment purposes.
The tragedy occurred when a train carrying crude oil derailed in the Quebec town, destroying homes and businesses as well as killing 47.
