No, a 1963 Sci-Fi Movie Wasn't Titled 'The Omicron Variant'

A digitally created poster is doing the rounds to claim a movie titled 'The Omicron Variant' was released in 1963.

A digitally created poster is doing the rounds to claim that a movie titled 'The Omicron Variant' released in 1963.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

As more and more countries are reporting cases of the Omicron variant, misinformation around the virus continues to spread unabated. Untruths, unverified messages, and conspiracy theories about the virus being "planned" have made a comeback.

A movie poster titled 'The Omicron Variant: The Day The Earth Was Turned Into A Cemetery (sic)' has gone viral with users pointing out that the movie released in 1963.

However, we found out that the text 'The Omicron Variant' has been digitally altered on the poster of another sci-fi movie called 'Phase IV' which released in 1974. Though a movie called 'Omicron' released in 1963, it wasn't about a virus or the variant of a virus.

CLAIM

Filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma shared the movie poster and wrote "Believe it or faint". He further added that the movie released in 1963.

An archived version of the tweet can be found here.

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Several other users shared the movie poster and wrote that 'the history is repeating itself'. Some of the archived links can be found here, here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND

We did a simple keyword search on Google with the name 'Omicron movie' and came across a film that released in 1963. As per IMDB, an online repository of information related to films, shows etc, this movie was about an alien taking over a human body to learn about planet Earth.

However, neither did the name of the film mention 'The Omicron Variant' nor could we find a tagline which mentioned 'The day the earth turned into a cemetery (sic)'.

Next, we conducted a reverse search on the poster of the movie which led us to a poster uploaded on Pinterest which read 'Sucesos En La IV Fase'. This poster was the same as the one which is now being shared as 'The Omicron Variant'.

Comparison between the viral poster and the poster of Sucesos En La IV Fase. 

(Source: Twitter/Pinterst/Altered by The Quint)

On looking for 'Sucesos En La IV Fase' we found that this was a sci-fi movie which released 1974. The original English title of the movie was 'Phase IV' and the tagline 'The day the earth turned into a cemetery' was associated with this film.

Comparison between the viral poster and the original movie poster.

(Source: Twitter/IMDB/Altered by The Quint)

Further, we came across a tweet by a user called 'Becky Cheatle' who claimed that she photoshopped the name 'The Omicron Variant' onto the posters of sci-fi movies.

A user claimed that she had photoshopped the name 'The Omicron Variant' on the posters. 

(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)

Clearly, a movie called 'Omicron' released in 1963 but it had nothing to do with the virus. And there was no movie titled 'The Omicron Variant: The Day The Earth Was Turned Into a Cemetery (sic)'. The posters are digitally created.

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