Mattel is being sued for mistakenly printing the URL for a pornographic web site on the packaging for special-edition “Wicked” dolls.
According to court docket paperwork, a South Carolina resident is launching a category motion lawsuit after buying the toy for her younger daughter, who visited the X-rated web site that had “nothing to do with the ‘Wicked’ doll.” The toy firm mistakenly listed a similarly-titled web site for the adult-entertainment web site Wicked Pictures, reasonably than the official web page for the Universal Pictures movie, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. The plaintiff alleges that Mattel didn’t supply a refund and believes she and her youngster suffered “emotional misery” from the misprint.
“These scenes have been hardcore, full on nude pornographic photos depicting precise intercourse,” the lawsuit reads. “Plaintiff’s minor daughter instantly confirmed her mom the pictures and each have been horrified by what they noticed. If plaintiff had been conscious of such an inappropriate defect within the product, she wouldn’t have bought it.”
Mattel, the producer of Barbie, pulled the toy from cabinets at retailers together with Target, Amazon and Kohl’s. It additionally issued an announcement that it was “conscious of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel ‘Wicked’ assortment dolls, primarily offered within the United States, which supposed to direct customers to the official WickedFilm.com touchdown web page.” The firm suggested customers who have already got the dolls to “discard the product packaging or obscure the hyperlink.”
Neither Universal nor Mattel responded to request for remark.
After “Wicked” opened in theaters, Universal’s chief advertising and marketing officer Michael Moses instructed Variety he didn’t assume the snafu was dangerous to ticket gross sales for the movie. The film musical collected a stunning $112 million in its debut and has since grossed $263 million domestically and $360 million globally.
“I don’t assume that each one press is nice press. I all the time categorize incidents between what may truly harm the will to see the film and what may not,” he mentioned. “I believe that was an instance of 1 that’s an anecdote greater than a menace.”
