Warner Bros. apologizes as 'The Witches' sparks angry backlash in disability community

Warner Bros has apologized after The Witches sparked a backlash among the disabled community.

The remake of the 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's novel provoked controversy on social media this week, due to a change to the source material which depicts Anne Hathaway's character, The Grand High Witch, having three fingers on one hand.

Check out the terrifying trailer for The Witches remake in the video below: 

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In Roald Dahl's original book, witches can be identified by their bald heads, their lack of toes, and their clawed hands.

However, the depiction of evil characters with distinct hand and foot impairments has concerned many disability rights activist groups over the film's impact on people born with ectrodactyly - a condition in which the hand is split.

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For instance, 22-year-old British Paralympian Amy Marren issued a statement in response to the film, writing to her 9,000 Twitter followers:

"Disappointed in the new Warner Bros film The Witches... I myself am a huge advocate of celebrating differences and especially limb differences.

"It's not unusual for surgeons to try to build hands for children/adults with certain limb differences, and it's upsetting to something that makes a person being represented as something scary."

The statement continued:

"My fear is that children will watch this film, unaware that it massively exaggerates the Roald Dahl original, and that [limb] differences begin to be feared."

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As a result of the movie's portrayal of its witches, the Paralympic Games launched the hashtag #notawitch to share pictures of themselves to raise awareness of their limb differences.

The official Paralympics Twitter account tweeted: "Limb difference is not scary. Differences should be celebrated and disability has to be normalized. #NotAWitch calls out #TheWitches movie for portrayal of disability."

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Per a recent report by Deadline, a Warner Bros spokesperson has now apologized for any offense caused, stating:

"In adapting the original story, we worked with designers and artists to come up with a new interpretation of the cat-like claws that are described in the book.

"It was never the intention for viewers to feel that the fantastical, non-human creatures were meant to represent them."

Anne Hathaway recently shared this video showing her transformation into the Grand High Witch:

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