A Dog’s Purpose was intended to be a solid animal movie. It’s intention was certainly not to harm anyone. The film’s plot reads as follows: “A devoted dog (Josh Gad) discovers the meaning of its own existence through the lives of the humans it teaches to laugh and love. Reincarnated as multiple canines over the course of five decades, the lovable pooch develops an unbreakable bond with a kindred spirit named Ethan.
But how quickly things have turned sour for the film as reports of an abusive incident involving one of the canines leaked. As such, PETA has been boycotting the film. In fact a recent protest was lead by Lisa Lange who is a senior vice President for the group. According to the LA times:
Last week, TMZ published behind-the-scenes footage of a dog resisting before being submerged in water during an on-set stunt. “I was horrified,” Lange said of her reaction to the clip. “If this can happen on a set where people actually care about animals, it shows how deeply entrenched the problems are in the industry.”
Filmmakers actually dismissed the clip saying it had been edited to make the dog look like it was suffering when it in fact wasn’t. Even so, Universal Pictures, who is distributing “A Dog’s Purpose,” canceled the film’s red carpet premiere and promotional press junket.
Demonstrators were chanting that dogs are not props and that their actual purpose is to sleep on rainy days and play with toys. One of the arguments was to have created the movie using all digital dogs, however that would have quadrupled the film’s budget. Unfortunately in order to save a few dollars it seems some innocent animals were harmed making the film. In this case it looks like PETA as a very legit claim and it doesn’t look too good for “A Dog’s Purpose.”
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