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A Dog's Purpose Cleared Of Animal Cruelty Allegations
Wednesday 8th February 2017 | David
The controversial leaked footage of animal cruelty from the set of A Dog's Purpose turned out to be fake.
As the saying goes, believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. A leaked video from the set of the recently released film A Dog’s Purpose was obtained by TMZ. It appeared to reveal a terrified German Shepherd forcibly being submerged in a water tank in order to film a scene. Naturally there were protests and calls to boycott the film left right and centre.
However, all of this proved to be for nothing because the American Humane Association conducted an investigation into the leaked video and concluded that it was, “Deliberately edited for the purpose of misleading the public and stoking public outrage.” And needless to say the perpetrators were successful in doing exactly that.
The detailed report on their website breaks down exactly how the footage was been falsified and manipulated to mislead viewers. For instance, not only did different parts of the video occur on different days but at no point were the dogs forcibly placed into water. I recommend reading the entire report to get the full details of their investigation.
Director Lasse Hailstorm, whose previous credits include Chocolate, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and the similarly dog-themed Hachi: A Dog's Tale, also strongly denied that animal cruelty had occurred on the set in the following tweets.
I am very disturbed by the video released today from the set of my film A dog's purpose.
— lasse hallstrom (@HallstromLasse) January 19, 2017
I did not witness these actions.
— lasse hallstrom (@HallstromLasse) January 19, 2017
We were all committed to providing a loving and safe environment for all the animals in the film.
I have been a lifelong animal lover and A DOG’S PURPOSE is my third film about dogs. The animals’ safety was of utmost priority.
— lasse hallstrom (@HallstromLasse) January 19, 2017
A Dog’s Purpose has currently grossed $42,816,380 worldwide against a production budget of $22 million, which already makes it a moderate financial success. So the false allegations clearly didn't have much of an impact after all.
