‘The Mummy’ posters banned from London Underground

The Advertising Standards Authority have ruled that they gave "a realistic impression of a dead child"

Posters for Lee Cronin’s The Mummy will no longer be allowed to appear on the London Underground after they were judged likely to distress young children.

The posters, which ran at Tube stations around the release of the film in April, showed a close-up of a mummified female figure with grey skin, a swollen eye and a shroud inscribed with hieroglyphic symbols. The tagline read: “Some things are meant to stay buried.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has now revealed that they received 30 complaints about the poster campaign and have ruled that the figure’s “sunken and lifeless” face made it resemble a dead child.

It noted that one of the posters was visible from a children’s nursery and concluded that it was likely to distress young children.

The ASA ruled, therefore, that the posters breached official advertising regulations on social responsibility, harm and offence, and must not appear again in public in the same form.

Warner Bros had argued that the figure on the poster was a living mummy who has returned to her family as a teenager or young adult, and added that her neutral expression, open eye and the lack of restraints had been intended to reduce the risk of distress.

The ASA did not uphold other complaints about the poster campaign, including the argument that the image was distressing to people who had lost a child and that it was insensitive in the context of ongoing global conflicts. Instead, they ruled that the film’s title and release date made the context of the image sufficiently clear.