When news broke from several sources over the weekend that Robert De Niro was reprising his role as Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver for an advert for British Uber, there was surprise and disgust from some corners of the internet.

the 1976 Neo Noir psychological thriller directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, and Harvey Keitel, follows lonely outsider taxi driver Travis Bickle (De Niro), and his crumbling mental state as he encounters firsthand the sleaze and violence of New York’s City streets after the Vietnam war.

De Niro was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor his portrayal.

Reports of the proposed upcoming advertisement for UK Uber prompted Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader to voice his disgust at the idea in a Facebook post.

“Ouch. Why Bob would do this is beyond my reckoning,” Schrader wrote on September 20. “But I haven’t seen it. If I’m lucky I never will.”

However, the reports appear to be (mostly) untrue.

Uber confirmed via statement that although De Niro is filming an advert for the service in the UK, the campaign does not have a Taxi Driver theme.

“We are filming with Robert De Niro in London for a new Uber UK campaign, which will launch later in the year,” the company said in a statement.

De Niro’s spokesman Stan Rosenfield also repeated that the actor is not reviving Travis Bickle for the ad campaign, nor is he using Bicke’s famous catchphrase: “You talkin’ to me?”

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