Fake news stories promote a movie about a fake spa

In a particularly weird turn at the juncture of news, health and propaganda, a Hollywood studio is using fake news sites describing imaginary epidemics and made-up politics to sell a movie about a fake cure.

The ploy was a publicity stunt to promote director Gore Verbinski's "A Cure for Wellness," a horror movie set in the 1920s at a mayhem-filled Swiss therapy spa in which, according to the trailer, women lie in snake-filled bathtubs and everyone seems to have ghoulish makeup.


The movie's publicity campaign launched during the Super Bowl with a mock pharmaceutical ad for a "cure" that has terrifying side effects, including "insanity, self-mutilation, murderous rage and addiction to pain.”

To promote the film, the studio set up fake news sites whose names suggested they were hometown newspapers — SaltLakeCityguardian.com, Houstonleader.com, Sacramentodispatch.com, Indygazette.com — in cities where the movie opened earlier this month. And in some cases, the fake news took off.

A pro-Trump, anti-vaccine website fell for the hoax and picked up one of the “stories,” which claimed that President Donald Trump — who in real life has blamed vaccines for causing autism, emboldening anti-vax forces — had ordered the CDC to remove all vaccine-related information from its website.

Another fake story linked to the movie claimed that Trump and Vladimir Putin were seen together before the election at a Swiss resort; another that doctors had classified Trump Depression Disorder as a disease.

The moviemakers were of course happy to cop to their fakery, although by Tuesday afternoon they had removed the fake stories and replaced them with a link to the movie website.

“A Cure for Wellness is a movie about a ‘fake’ cure that makes people sicker,” according to a statement from 21st Century Fox and New Regency. “As part of this campaign, a ‘fake’ wellness site was created and we partnered with a fake news creator to publish fake news.”

The campaign both teases at and embodies the stunning rise in public deception practiced by some politicians, governments and companies.

New York University bioethicist Arthur Caplan found the movie’s publicity campaign “very ethically dubious."

"Fake news as fake entertainment is, in the current climate, irresponsible,” he said.

The statement from 21st Century Fox and New Regency provided an elusive, self-serving response to the criticism. “As our movie's antagonist says, ‘There is a sickness inside us. And only when we know what ails us, can we hope to find the cure.’”