It would appear that Warner Bros. wants no part in making America “great” again. On Tuesday, Donald Trump tweeted out a bizarre rallying cry, an apparent 2020 campaign promotion that included random images of celebrities including Rosie ODonnell, Bryan Cranston, and Amy Schumer, as well as his political enemies and images of the president at rallies. But its most bizarre artistic choice was the use of a track from The Dark Knight Rises—specifically, “Why Do We Fall?” In response, Warner Bros. released a statement and filed a copyright claim—leading Twitter to remove the video, even as the post remains active.
“The use of Warner Bros. score from The Dark Knight Rises in the campaign video was unauthorized,” a representative for Warner Bros. told V.F. in a statement. “We are working through the appropriate legal channels to have it removed.” Representatives for Hans Zimmer, who composed the films score, did not respond to V.F.s request for comment.
The Hill confirmed that the studio filed a copyright claim. Although the presidents tweet has not been deleted, the video has been removed, replaced with the message, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.” As the Verge notes, this appears to be only the second time Twitter has taken direct action against Trumps improper use of its platform. (The first time, the Verge reports, came in February, when R.E.M. had a similarly strong reaction to Trump using one of its songs in an earlier video; that clip, too, was removed, though the tweet remains active.)
It appears that Trump is a very big fan of The Dark Knight Rises. In 2017, a line from the presidents inaugural address seemed to echo one of the villain Banes own speeches from the film—leading two of the characters creators to respond by noting that the president is basically like a Batman villain. (Then again, the presidents proposed 2020 slogan, “Keep America Great,” was also used verbatim as the tagline for The Purge: Election Year—so maybe Trump just likes aligning himself with political villains.)
R.E.M. and Warner Bros. are also far from the only ones who have asked Trump to keep their music out of his campaign materials. Parties including Rihanna, Pharrell, Princes estate, George Harrisons estate, Queen, Read More – Source
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Vanity Fair
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