I kinda figured it was some form of created buzz to draw in the patrons.
But i might add this observation, i looked at many reviews of Passengers and they were very critical of it, hated it with a pasdion, i bought the movie and found it very very good,it had real hetero love in it, so no wonder it was hated by the Hollywood queers.
Reminds me of the “Leo DiCaprio gets raped by a bear” buzz before Revenant came out.