Earlier this week, Warner Bros. Japan understandably took issue with its U.S. counterparts after the official Barbie Twitter account interacted with a “Barbenheimer” meme featuring a mushroom cloud.
Because Barbie and Oppenheimer are from two different studios, “Barbenheimer” has been an entirely fan-driven campaign that celebrates both films opening on the weekend where they proceeded to shatter box office records. However, when the official Barbie account reacted favorably with some of the memes, that’s when Warner Bros. Japan took issue.
“We consider it extremely regrettable that the official account of the American headquarters for the movie ‘Barbie’ reacted to the social media postings of ‘Barbenheimer’ fans. We take this situation very seriously,” Warner Bros. Japan said in a statement. “We are asking the U.S. headquarters to take appropriate action. We apologize to those who were offended by this series of inconsiderate reactions.”
Since then, Warner Bros. has not only pulled the offending tweet, but issued a public apology. “Warner Brothers regrets its recent insensitive social media engagement. The studio offers a sincere apology,” the entertainment giant wrote in a statement to Variety.
Considering the sensitive subject of the film, which tackles the creation of the bombs that killed over 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer has not opened in Japan and there are no plans to do so at this time. In addition to Warner Bros. Japan, the Japanese public has openly criticized the “Barbenheimer” social media craze.
(Via Variety)