How kill rights work
When unit stills are shot on a film or TV production, the talent appearing in them often hold a contractual right to control which images are published. Exercising that right — rejecting an image — is called “killing” it.
The allowance is normally expressed as an approval percentage — commonly a minimum of around 50% of solo shots and 75% of group shots approved, so an actor can kill more of their solo images than their group ones.
In a talent approval workflow, cast review a curated set of images and kill the ones they object to, up to their limit. The surviving frames form the approved set, from which the unit publicist or a producer picks the key selects delivered to the distributor.
For the full picture — where kill rights come from, how killing works in practice and how the percentages are tracked — read our guide to kill rights explained.