White House
Frames from the video showing Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un, and an inset of the "Destiny Pictures" credit.
- Donald Trump showed Kim Jong Un a wild movie trailer pitching a peaceful, prosperous North Korea at the Singapore summit.
- The video said it was produced by "Destiny Pictures," seemingly a play on words to hype the importance of the summit.
- There is a company called Destiny Pictures in California which is not happy at having been inadvertently name-checked in the Trump video.
- Its founder has been busily distancing the company from any association with the White House.
A company in California is distancing itself from a Hollywood-style video Donald Trump showed to Kim Jong Un at their summit in Singapore as part of the pitch for peace.
The four-minute film, in the style of an action movie trailer, said it was produced by "Destiny Pictures," but has since been identified as the work of the US National Security Council.
"Destiny Pictures" appears to have been included in the video as a play on words, to suggest that the summit was the work of destiny.
However, there is a real Destiny Pictures in California, which has been at pains to stress it has nothing to do with the clip.
Mark Castaldo, the company's founder, spent Tuesday fending off calls and emails from people who wrongly thought he was behind the video.
A series of tweets show him assuring various reporters that he was nothing to do with the film and asking him to remove his name from articles about it.
Although Castaldo was not a fan of the video, President Trump was keen on it, and talked it up repeatedly at a post-summit press conference yesterday.
He said that he showed Kim Jong Un the video on an iPad, and that he "loved it."
Trump met with Kim for around 45 minutes. Given that the video is just over four minutes, this means he apparently spent more than a tenth of his time with Kim showing the video.
Trump said Kim's aides were "fascinated" by its optimistic vision of a future North Korea, though he admitted the reality may end up falling somewhat short.
@MarkLandler For everyone asking--we had nothing to do with the Singapore video
- Mark Castaldo (@DestinyPictures) June 12, 2018@joshkelliott We had nothing to do with that video. This is letting you know. Remove my name and company in your article at Global
- Mark Castaldo (@DestinyPictures) June 12, 2018@wolfblitzer @TeamCNN @teamhln This is Mark @DestinyPictures . We had nothing to do with Singapore video. Woke up to 100's of e-mails and calls from all over the world. Crazy-- Call?
- Mark Castaldo (@DestinyPictures) June 12, 2018