Florida theater apologizes for sexy ad before kids' movie

DELTONA, Fla., April 14 (UPI) -- A Florida movie theater apologized after a mother complained about a sexually suggestive ad playing prior to a family-friendly animated film.

Marie Sanders said she and her young son were both shocked Sunday when they went to Epic Theatres in Deltona to see Home, a PG-rated cartoon about a young girl's friendship with an alien, and saw the Revlon cosmetics ad playing before the movie.

"I would expect to see that before I saw 50 Shades of Grey not Home with my children," Sanders told WKMG-TV. "There was kissing, touching, it was very suggestive. Just had no place to be played before a children's movie."

Sanders said her son was confused.

"He's like what is this, what is going on, are we in the right movie?" she said.

Sanders said she recorded the ad on her cellphone to show theater managers, but they were not responsive to her complaints.

"I wasn't even sure if the theater was aware. I thought maybe it was a mistake, that's why I tried to bring it to their attention and they were just very flippant about the whole situation," she said.

Epic Theatres issued a statement to WKMG-TV.

"Epic Theatres apologizes for the programming error. The ad was removed as soon as we became aware of the situation," the statement said.

Sanders said she hopes the situation inspires other parents to speak up when faced with similar situations.

"It's commercials, it's television shows, it's movies. All these things that are targeted towards our children and they're very suggestive and are overly sexualized. It's up to us to limit what our children are exposed to and if we don't do it, who's going to do it?" she said.

A Revlon representative said the company would not have wanted its ads played with a children's film and that officials appreciate the theater's apology.

A drive-in theater in Concord, Calif., faced a similar controversy in February when parents taking their kids to see The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water discovered they could see the screen for Fifty Shades of Grey from the audience of the cartoon film.