Story By: Jonathan Macias, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Mexican Oscar-winning director Guillermo Del Toro has called out a beer brand for using a graphic design on its cans based on his face and images of his fictional characters without his permission.
Director Del Toro complained on social media about the Spanish beer brand Victoria, part of the Spanish group Damm, using pictures of his fictional monsters and himself on their cans.
Victoria launched a line of beer cans with the faces of some of the monsters that appear in his films such as Pan’s Labyrinth as well as the face of the Mexican director himself to celebrate his birthday on the 9th of October.
The brand wrote under a picture of the cans on Twitter: “And today we celebrate the birthday of one of the greatest: Guillermo del Toro, how cool that you are Mexican! This is a present in advance for your birthday! Congratulations ‘RealGDT’!”
Although it took the director some time to reply he did not like the present as he complained he had not authorised the publicity campaign or the use of his characters’ images.
Del Toro wrote on a Twitter message last 13th of November: “Very bad, ‘VictoriaMX’ I have not authorised the use of my image or my name, nor have I been consulted or signed anything. Donate the revenue to children’s teams of maths or robotics. They need it.”
Victoria reportedly launched the line of beer cans with the images of Guillermo del Toro and his monsters to end the exhibition sponsored by the beer brand “En Casa Con Mis Montros” (At Home With My Monsters).
The exhibition was displayed between the 1st of June 2019 to 3rd of November 2019 in the Museum of the Arts of the University of Guadalajara (MUSA) and showed pieces from the Del Toro’s movies.
On 16th of November Del Toro announced on Twitter that Victoria and he had made an agreement and the beer brand would donate the revenue to the Mathematics Olympiad in Mexico City and the Special Olympics, a sporting event for people with disabilities.
The Mexican director wrote on Twitter: “‘VictoriaMX’ and I talked. With goodwill, the misunderstanding has already been solved. The cans with my signature and face will be replaced by a new graphics project (without any profit for me) and they will donate part of the profit to ‘CDMXOMM’ and ‘SOMEXICO’. Thank you”
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