Fake Zendaya 'Challengers' Movie Poster Alluding to N-Word Sparks Both Outcry and Jokes

The internet is an interesting place.

On Friday, X, formerly Twitter, was set ablaze when an illegitimate version of the movie poster for the Zendaya-starring tennis drama film Challengers—which is now out in theaters—made its rounds on the social media platform.

The poster, shared by account @filmstofilms_, went viral and garnered over 32 million views, 11,000 reposts, and 5,600 likes on X at the time of this writing. "'CHALLENGERS' releases in theaters today!" reads the tweet, which features a fake poster for the film encompassing a simple white background and black font. But the thing that got people's attention was that the image curiously, and likely deliberately, splits the film's title in half, with the second portion looking pretty similar to the N-word.

In response to people decrying the creator of the image as racist, the owner of the page, claiming to be a Black woman, took to X to deny such allegations. "For those implying that I’m a 'racist' because of this poster, just take into account that I’m a black woman," reads the tweet. "I don’t take responsibility for what you make out of something I post here. It’s you letting your imagination run wild."

With media and internet literacy at all-time lows, the movie's official X account had to set things straight with a message that read, "Happy Challengers Day from our only official posters."

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Outside of some who took offense to the fake promotional image, the fake poster also garnered a ton of not-so-serious, comedic reactions on X from Black Twitter.

Challengers was directed by Luca Guadagnino and also stars Josh O'Connor and Mike Faist. Watch the film's trailer below.

You can also check out some of the responses to the viral, controversial, and very fake movie poster below.