In recent years, the fight against parks like Sea World yielded results by ending the captivity of marine animals for use in live performances. However, long before the documentary Blackfish (2013) shock the world, Free Willy already brought a message for animal freedom.
The story of friendship between a messy boy and a park orca enchanted the world with its innocence and sense of adventure. Over the years, the film became a rerun classic, winning over new generations. Therefore, this weekend, CinePOP separated ten interesting facts that you may not know about the film. Check out!
Did not want to
When the production team went to make the film, they auditioned 23 orcas for the role of Willy. Of this number, 21 of them ‘belonged’ to the park Sea World. However, upon learning of the message behind the film, executives refused to give up their animals. They even negotiated with the production, but demanded that they change the ending of the film, which was not met. In this way, they arrived at Orca Keiko, from the Mexican park Adventure Kingdom.
Bad conditions
The park agreed to have its Orca used in the film. Having a past of performing in parks, Keiko was docile and familiar with contact with human beings. Because of this, the animal was considered the best option to join the film’s cast. However, the Orca’s life was very complicated in Mexico, as she had a series of skin lesions and was in a tank much smaller than that recommended for an animal of her size.
Hard life
Before becoming an ‘actor’, poor Keiko went through several abuses in his life. He was captured in Iceland in the late 1970s. There, he was called Keiko, which means ‘lucky’ in the local language, and was sold to an aquarium in the region. Some time later, it was sold to the MarineLand, In Canada. In this park, the animal was rudimentarily trained to perform live, which resulted in bruises on its skin. Because it had an ‘ugly’ look, it ended up being sold to the Adventure Kingdomin Mexico, where he would be cast to play Willy in theaters.
Controversy after fame
With the resounding success of Free Willy, its protagonist’s situation was brought to light. As the film talked about the release of Orcas from these parks, the Free Keiko Foundation (something like “Fundação Libertem o Keiko”), which had the support of Warner. With the repercussion and more than 20 million dollars raised, they found a place in the United States where the whale could live in better conditions. So, they built a tank of suitable dimensions at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and transferred the marine actor there, where he began to gain weight and began to come into contact with seawater. Given this, organizations began to pressure to release the animal into the ocean, where it should live free. However, it was an Orca that had spent practically its entire life in captivity, so it involved a series of adaptation issues. The reinsertion process began, despite all the controversy surrounding the case. Thus, the animal was released into the sea in 2002. However, it was unable to “fit in” with other Orcas and began swimming in search of human contact. Unfortunately, Keiko ended up dying alone, at the age of 27, from a case of pneumonia in 2003. The case is considered a historic failure.
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At all costs
Em 2014, Mark Williams, former Sea World instructor and Keiko’s trainer in the film, released the book “Killing Keiko: The True Story of Free Willy’s Return to the Wild”. It was revealed that Keiko’s release was never done with the animal’s well-being in mind, but rather a response to pressure from several organizations that wanted to sell the public a Hollywood-worthy ending for the cetacean, who had an unstable health condition. In the book, the boy, who accompanied Keiko on her reintroduction into the ocean, said that the whale settled on the beaches of Norway after being rejected by its own species. There, the Orca played with children, even letting them ride him. And this contact with humans would have occurred because Keiko didn’t know how to hunt fish, so she looked for rewards in people. And he was supposedly rejected by his species because they chose a group of Orcas led by an aggressive ‘Alpha’ who was unreceptive, so to speak, to the movie star.
Animatronic
In the film, Keiko’s work was reduced to a few more general scenes. To avoid stress on the animal, all close-up and out-of-water scenes were recorded by a hyper-realistic animatronic. The result was so satisfactory that they never used another Orca as an ‘actor’ in the franchise after Keiko.
Very realistic
The realism of the animatronics was so great that it confused many people around the world, who thought that the production had actually exposed the Orca to scenes outside the water. For the film, two animatronics were built. One of them was just the top part of the whale. This was used for the scenes with Willy swimming in the open sea. The second was a life-size rubberized robot. This ‘complete’ version was so realistic that it not only fooled the public, but Keiko himself, who began to show “loving interest” in the doll. It was a kind of ‘She‘ (2013) submarine.
Innocence
As usual in Hollywood, the film’s script underwent a series of changes. In the original version, the boy Jesse would be an innocent ten-year-old mute boy, who was raised by nuns in a convent. The work was so irritatingly innocent and saccharine that the studio requested a drastic change in the boy’s personality. Thus, Jesse was rewritten as a more mischievous boy, adapting to his adoptive parents at the height of his 12 years of age.
Debut
To bring Jesse to life, the production tested more than 4,000 young actors, including renowned names in young acting, such as Alex VincentAndy from the franchise Killer toy. Of these boys, 12 were chosen for the final phase, which would end with the newcomer Jason James Richter as the one chosen to star in the story. To prepare for his theatrical debut, the boy spent two weeks interacting daily with Keiko in the tank.
Return
The film became an absurd success, grossing more than 150 million dollars at the box office. The curious thing is that its budget was estimated at approximately 20 million dollars, the same amount as the Free Keiko Foundation raised money for Keiko’s transfer to the aquarium in the USA. However, despite making a lot of money, the film dealt with mixed reviews from the specialized press. The fact is that the return was considered positive, resulting in a franchise with three more films released later.
Free Willy is available for rent at Amazon Prime Video.