LOS ANGELES, July 27, 2010 (AFP) – Film director Oliver Stone apologized Tuesday for comments he made to a London newspaper on the Holocaust and Jews' control of the media, which drew an avalanche of criticism.

"In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret," Stone said in a statement issued by his publicist.

"Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry."

Stone's comments reported by London's Sunday Times provoked a sharp response, including from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a group that combats anti-Semitism.

Stone reportedly said that the Holocaust is overemphasized because of the "Jewish domination of the media" and also commented that "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people."

The director, who won Oscars for "Platoon" and "Born on the Fourth of July," said he was not attempting to deny the Holocaust of World War II.

"The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity -- and it was an atrocity," he said in the statement.