And with E.T., Quaid took his comments further: “I was there. I never saw any abuse of any animal. And if there had been, I would have walked.”
It has not been an easy week for the makers of A Dog’s Purpose. Last Thursday, video surfaced of a German shepherd apparently being forced to perform a stunt on-set. Controversy erupted, and by Friday, Universal and Amblin Entertainment had jointly canceled the film’s Los Angeles premiere. But the case is not yet closed. Over the weekend, the author of the book upon which the movie is based spoke out—and PETA, which called for a boycott of the film, fired back. Then, on Monday, producer Gavin Polone made good on his promise to review exactly what happened on-set—offering an inside look at what went wrong and what, in his opinion, might be the way forward.
To Polone, films like A Dog’s Purpose play an important role in fostering interest and support for animal welfare. Requiring all media to replace all animals with C.G.I. (computer-generated ry) stand-ins would astronomically drive up costs, Polone argues, and effectively prevent many of these projects from getting made—outweighing the potential benefits to animal actors. PETA has not yet responded to Polone’s op-ed.
PETA evidently found the Cameron’s remarks insufficient, rebutting with its own statement: “It takes a cold heart not to find this footage disturbing, so PETA asks whether ‘A Dog’s Purpose’ was written from the heart or just to make a buck,” PETA VP Lisa Lange told Variety. “If additional footage exists, it should be made public, but it won’t change the footage of a terrified dog forced into churning water any more than nanny cam footage of a bedtime story changes footage of a caregiver hitting a child.”
“Mistakes were made, and everything needs to be done to make sure those errors are not repeated,” Cameron said. “But the reason American Humane certifies that no animals were harmed during the making of the film is that no animals were harmed during the making of the film.”Most Popular
I have met people at PETA in the past and, unlike many other animal rights supporters, have hoped to cultivate a relationship with them. In fact, I spoke to them several years ago about the need for a better, more independent organization than AHA to police the treatment of animals on movie and TV sets and offered to help set that up. They were not interested. After this story broke, I exchanged emails with Lisa Lange, a senior vp at PETA. In response to my suggesting again that we should focus on replacing AHA, she countered that the group isn’t in favor of better protection for animals on sets but rather “to remove them entirely.” She went on to urge me to never use any animals in movies or television again. When PETA means “any,” it means no cats or dogs. Zero animals, ever. That is its position.
Like Lisa, I do believe that wild animals should never be used on sets. During the early script development of A Dog’s Purpose, I demanded that a scene with a bear be excised for that very reason. Computer generated ry (CGI) has effectively replaced the use of wild animals on occasion, most notably in big-budget films like the new Planet of the Apes movies and The Revenant. But even in those films, some or several real animals were also used. The idea of making a more contained movie like A Dog’s Purpose with all CGI animals is impossible, as the cost would be astronomical to replace every animal in the movie. For example, the digital dog that I mentioned above cost $41,075. Extrapolate that across the whole movie, where most of the scenes have at least one dog in them and many have more, plus other animals in other scenes in the background. I would estimate that it would balloon the budget by a factor of four or five to more than $110 million, making the project economically unviable.
I have participated in, helped pay for and written in this publication about animal welfare causes. My will is set up so that all I have shall be donated to charities benefiting animals when I die. I am a vegan who has fewer close friends than most and no relatives with whom I speak regularly. The most consistent and closest relationships I’ve had throughout my life have been with animals.
I spoke to Holly Bario, the president of production at Amblin Partners, the film’s studio. She told me they were investigating how this could happen and would hold those responsible to account: what I wanted to hear. Cynically, I could say that the executives at the studio were looking to protect their asset, and that is true, but I also know they are all dog lovers and caring people, and I believe they were genuinely concerned about the welfare of all the animals on the movie.
From a front angle, when they shot the scene, you can see that there is a calmer path in the artificial water turbulence for the dog to move through. This is not visible in the TMZ video. You can also see, at the end of the scene, the dog going underwater for four seconds, which never should have happened, and then the diver and handlers lifting the dog out of the pool. The dog then shook off and trotted around the pool, unharmed and unfazed. They only did one take of the full scene and then ended for the day. TMZ’s edited version gives the impression that the dog was thrown in and eventually drowned, since the two parts seem to be connected. You never see him pulled out and OK. This is highly misleading.
Does a dog’s purpose have a sad ending?
As in, the heart wrenching sadness of watching a dog die will be repeated several times throughout this movie. … According to that interview with CBS, Cameron actually wrote A Dog’s Purpose to help the woman he was in love with, Cathryn, get over the death of her own beloved dog, Ellie.
Dennis Quaid On ‘A Dog’s Purpose’: ‘Absolutely No Dogs Were Harmed’ | TODAY
Report Finds that No Animals Were Harmed in the Making of the Film. … In fact, the two scenes shown in the edited video were filmed at different times. The first video scene was stopped after the dog showed signs of stress. The dog was not forced to swim in the water at any time.