The release of the kids movie A Dog’s Purpose has been thrown into turmoil by the leaking of a video that purports to show one of the dogs in the movie being forced into water.
Film studio Universal canceled the A Dog’s Purpose premiere and press junket, and the storm over the alleged instance of animal cruelty is intensifying. There are now 27 petitions on change.org calling for a boycott of the movie, which tells the story of a dog over five decades as he experiences multiple owners.
Animal rights activists are fiercely objecting to footage that shows the head of Hercules, a German Shepherd and one of the dogs starring in the movie, appearing to go under water, prompting an unidentified person on set to hurriedly call for the film’s director, Lasse Hallstrom, to stop filming.
The footage was leaked to TMZ earlier this week:
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is leading the boycott call over what they interpret as a dog being cajoled into a pool of rushing water against his wishes. “This movie is directed towards those who love dogs and, clearly, this is not a dog’s purpose,” said Lisa Lange, PETA’s SVP. In a subsequent statement, PETA questioned if the movie was “written from the heart or just to make a buck.”
But producer Gavin Polone says the full video—as opposed to the TMZ excerpt— tells a different story from the line taken by animal activists. “Whoever was in control of the set should have told them to stop, but the dog was not in danger and the dog was, and is, OK,’ he told Deadline.
He added: “I looked at the video of all of this. [The dog] gets under the froth of the water, but he is lifted up by the diver. He came up and he was fine. If your stated goal is to never use any animal on a movie set ever again, then they are trying to use the video that someone probably sold to TMZ to get a commitment for that.
“I’m not saying there were no mistakes made, but the whole thing is becoming untrue and unfair, and I feel like they and the person who cut the cellphone video together are using the media for their own agendas. It’s a cellphone video that was cut in a certain way. There are so many things that you don’t see … there are raised platforms under the water. There is a (scuba) diver under the water. You don’t see the safety people on the other side.
“The person who cut it probably wanted to sell it, and it doesn’t sell if it looks like the dog is OK. [The person] made it look like the dog could die … or did die.”
Speaking about the growing movement to boycott the movie on social media, Polone tweeted: “Boycotting films that forward compassion towards animals is counter productive.”
Director Hallstrom said on Twitter: “I did not witness these actions. We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film.”
W. Bruce Cameron, the author of the novel that the movie is based on and co-writer of the screenplay, is also adamant that animal rights’ activists are jumping to conclusions. He said: “The written commentary accompanying the edited video mischaracterizes what happened. The dog was not terrified and not thrown in the water—I’ve seen footage of Hercules earlier that day joyfully jumping in the pool.
“When he was asked to perform the stunt from the other side of the pool, which was not how he had been doing it all day, he balked. The mistake was trying to dip the dog in the water to show him it was okay—the water wasn’t his issue, it was the location that was the issue, and the dog happily did the stunt when he was allowed to return to his original spot….He loves the water, wasn’t in danger, and wasn’t upset.”
Cameron added: “If the people who shot and edited the video thought something was wrong, why did they wait 15 months to do anything about it, instead of immediately going to the authorities?”
The incident is currently being reviewed by Universal, but producer Polone hopes the full video will be released to the public that shows Hercules (voiced by Josh Gad) was unharmed throughout filming.
The movie, which also stars Dennis Quaid and Britt Robertson, is set for release on January 27. It remains to be seen whether a long-awaited kids movie will now itself end up a dog thanks to the controversy over the leaked video.