Netflix Has Come Under Fire For Using Real Disaster Footage In ‘Bird Box’

Netflix’s Bird Box has been the talk of the town for the last month for apparently being the best movie out right now, however now people are talking about it for the wrong reasons.

The streaming platform has come under fire for using actual disaster footage in the film. They have confirmed that footage from Canada’s Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which killed 47 people, was used to depict a fictional apocalyptic scenario in the survival horror film.

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013 has been named as one of the worst rail incidents in Canadian history. The imagery appears in an early scene in the movie during a news broadcast about a mysterious phenomenon leading to mass deaths.

The mayor of Lac-Mégantic, Julie Morin, criticised Netflix for using the footage, telling Candian press: “You can be sure we are going to follow up on this, and our citizens are on our side.”

The imagery was sourced from stock footage supplier Pond5, which says that its millions of video clips include news coverage and archival footage. “We deeply regret that this happened and sincerely apologise to anyone who was offended, especially the victims and their families,” the company told Gizmodo.

The BBC reports that Netflix has previously used footage of the tragedy in the Canadian-American science fiction show Travellers, with the repurposed footage representing a nuclear attack on London.

A Netflix spokesman told AP it had no plans to remove the footage, confirming: “We will keep the clip in the movie.”

The spokesman reportedly acknowledged that the streaming service will be looking at ways to prevent this happening again in future.

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