Moviemaker Brett Ratner has apologised for including a joke about epilepsy in the TV trailer for his upcoming film Tower Heist.
Lost actor Greg Grunberg, who has an epileptic 15-year-old son, took offence to the Tower Heist movie preview and called on his Twitter.com followers to boycott the comedy upon its U.S. release in November (11).
In the clip, Eddie Murphy's character pokes fun at Ben Stiller's, calling him "little seizure boy" twice.
And, although Ratner claims the exchange was not meant to be hurtful, many viewers were angered by the insensitive reference.
Responding to the criticism, Ratner has written an open letter to epileptic community website TalkAboutIt.org, which was founded by Grunberg, stating, "I am so sorry you are offended... I sincerely feel bad."
Rush Hour director Ratner also took action to rectify the problem by asking movie bosses at Universal Studios to alter its marketing campaign and remove the remarks from trailers set to run in future television slots.
Grunberg later thanked Ratner for reaching out and expressing his apologies. In a post, he wrote, "Thanks @BrettRatner for ur (sic) Sincere Apology to the Epilepsy Community! I'm lifting my personal boycott of ur (sic) hilarious."