It looks like The Weeknd’s new music video is too flashy for the big screen.
A video for the singer’s upcoming single, “Take My Breath,” literally showed excessive blinding lights and was pulled ahead of its release in Imax theaters for the premiere of “The Suicide Squad,” according to Variety. The video clip in question featured “intense strobe lighting” that could trigger seizures.
The deal with Imax would have previewed his new music video during movie screenings across the country. The normally dark and gloomy vibe of his music videos is often offset with carefully placed bright lights.
The song, out Friday, is the first release from his fifth studio album. The upbeat single has already been teased in a Team USA Tokyo Olympics promo that showcased this year’s top female athletes.
The 31-year-old singer, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, is no stranger to testing the limits in his music videos and performances. He looked unrecognizable in the video for “Save Your Tears,” displaying the face of someone who had heavily altered their face with overly exaggerated plastic surgery procedures.
The bloodstained aesthetic seems to be a fixture for the Canadian-born singer.
He made a statement last year in the video for his hit song “Blinding Lights,” with a bruised face that was gushing with blood. He perfected the “beaten up” look again in his performance of the song at the 2020 VMAs.
In a recent interview with GQ, he said that this is the album “he’s always wanted to make.”
“What makes any of my albums a successful album, especially this one, is me putting it out and getting excited to make the next one,” he explained. “So the excitement to make the next project means that this one was successful to me. I want to do this forever. And even if I start getting into different mediums and different types of expressions, music will be right there. I’m not going to step away from it.”
Just because the song isn’t playing during Imax movie screenings, doesn’t mean the music video is gone for good. Fans can still expect it to drop sometime after the single’s release Friday.