Movies and TV shows have a great impact on the audience. People try to imitate their favourite characters or call certain phone numbers if they think it could be of any use. And if by any chance these details are true, it can cause problems to others in real life.
While there are rules in place to depict any phone number or address, movies and shows have at times landed in trouble for not adhering to them. Here’s a few examples.
1. Netflix’s latest series Squid Game featured a real phone number that belongs to a lady in South Korea.
In a scene from Netflix’s Squid Game, a stranger hands a business card to the show’s debt-strapped protagonist. The card contains an eight-digit phone number. The number apparently belongs to a lady in South Korea and ever since the show released, she has been inundated with texts and phone calls.
In an interview, she said that she has been using this number for more than 10 years.
At first I didn’t know why, but my friend told me that my number came out in Squid Game and that’s when I realised.
Following this, Netflix has decided to edit out the phone number from the show.
2. A Kashmiri Journalist alleged that Bollywood film Shershaah had a vehicle with his personal registration number.
He even posted the pictures of real and reel cars on Twitter to prove his allegations.
According to Ashraf, the vehicle was used by militants in the movie. Sharing a video snippet from the film he also expressed concerns about his and his family’s safety.
3. Actor Moubani Sorcar’s personal mobile number was flashed out in Game (2014), an Indian Bengali-language action thriller film.
Following the leak, she received plenty of calls from unknown numbers.
4. Several people received prank calls across the USA after God’s phone number flashed in Jim Carrey’s film Bruce Almighty.
There’s a scene in the movie where Jim Carrey’s character Bruce is dodging God’s calls and he’s sent a phone number to call for a direct line to the Almighty – 776-2323.
Usually, movies and TV shows in the US use the telephone exchange 555, which is not used for homes and businesses. But Bruce Almighty used a seven-digit number valid in many parts of the country. Many people who remembered the number put it to work in their own area codes wanting to call God. A woman in Pinellas Park complained of receiving as many as 20 calls per hour.
In another instance, Rev. Patrick Collington, an evangelist who runs Souls for Christ Ministries received about 100 calls from mostly people asking for God and hanging up.
When reel meets real, it can cause havoc.