New Delhi: The spread of the Omicron in several countries all around the world is fuelling the spread of misinformation across the internet as well. Unverified, false messages of the virus being “planned” have again made a comeback within the minds of the people.
A movie poster with the name ‘The Omicron Variant: The Day The Earth Was Turned Into A Cemetery (sic)’ has gone viral with netizens sharing it all across social media. The poster shows that the movie was released in 1963.
After fact-checking the viral content, one concludes that the text ‘The Omicron Variant’ has been digitally altered on the poster of another sci-fi movie named ‘Phase IV’ which was released in 1974. A movie named ‘Omicron’ was however released in 1963 but it has nothing to do with a virus or the variant of a virus.
Filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma shared the poster of the movie and wrote, “Believe it or faint.” He also added that the movie was released in 1963. Besides, the tagline of the poster stated, “The Day The Earth Was Turned Into A Cemetery.”
Believe it or faint ..This film came In 1963 ..Check the tagline ??? pic.twitter.com/ntwCEcPMnN
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) December 2, 2021
Several other netizens also shared the poster while some of them wrote, “the history is repeating itself.”
The 1963 movie was based on an alien taking over a human body to learn about the planet Earth.
After doing reverse image search, a similar poster appeared which had the name ‘Sucesos En La IV Fase.’ The poster was the same as the one now shared as ‘The Omicron Variant.’
On searching about ‘Sucesos En La IV Fase,’ it was found out that this movie was from sci-fi genre which was released in 1947. The original English title was ‘Phase IV’ and bore the same tagline as the now-viral fake movie poster, “The Day The Earth Was Turned Into A Cemetery.”
Meanwhile, a user with the name Becky Cheatle claimed that she photoshopped the name ‘The Omicron Variant’ onto the posters of sci-fi movies.
I Photoshopped the phrase “The Omicron Variant” into a bunch of 70s sci-fi movie posters #Omicron pic.twitter.com/1BuSL4mYwl
— Becky Cheatle (@BeckyCheatle) November 28, 2021
Thus, it is clear that no movie named ‘The Omicron Variant: The Day The Earth Was Turned Into a Cemetery (sic)’ was never released, however, a movie called Omicron was released in 1963 that had nothing to do with the virus.
