Viral `Omicron' movie posters are artwork, not related to COVID 19
Social media users are sharing posters of a movie titled “The Omicron Variant”. Its tagline reads, “The day the Earth was turned into a cemetery”. Netizens claim that the movie was released in 1963.
By Newsmeter Network
HYDERABAD: Social media users are sharing posters of a movie titled "The Omicron Variant". Its tagline reads, "The day the Earth was turned into a cemetery".
Netizens claim that the movie was released in 1963.
The poster is being shared after conspiracy theorists said the COVID-19 pandemic was pre-planned.
Director Ram Gopal Varma shared the poster. (Archive)
Below are a few posts shared by other social media users
FACT CHECK:
NewsMeter found the original version of the viral poster on Twitter by Becky Cheatle who stated that it is a fictional work of art using Photoshop. On December 1, she clarified that the posters are a "goof" and that she had added the phrase "The Omicron Variant" into a bunch of 70s sci-fi movie posters using Photoshop. (archive)
The fictional poster by Cheatle is based on a 1974 sci-fi thriller movie, "Phase IV". The viral poster carries the names of the same crew as of the "Phase 4" movie as well as the same tagline, "The day the Earth was turned into a cemetery".
The original movie poster is written in Spanish as "SUCESOS EN LA IV FASE", and not "The Omicron Variant". The plot of the movie is not related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, another poster was shared by US-based Twitter user Christopher Miller. "The Omnicron Variant" was also a photoshopped poster based on another 1966 movie titled 'Cyborg 2087'. (archive)
Here too, the plot is not related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Based on a search on IMDb, only two movies with "Omicron" in the title were found. One movie is titled "Omicron" which was released in 1963 and the other movie is titled "The Visitor from Planet Omicron '' which was released in 2013. However, neither of the movies is related to the Covid 19 pandemic
https://www.imdb.com/title/
https://www.imdb.com/title/
Therefore, it is clear that posters carrying the name "Omicron" are all purely a work of art.
