The book is pretty popular and the trailer got a good reaction with La La Land and Star Wars. I'm thinking this will break 20 million opening weekend and approach 70m total.

21/69

I hope it does that well. It was my 11th round pick in the draft.

I think it'll do well. That trailer and the premise resonate with people. I don't know about BO numbers though. Might open to $20-25m.

nevermind, TMZ got ahold of a video showing animal abuse in the filming of this movie and it went viral. $11m opening

Seems like a high-teens opener with good legs.

edit: oh at that leak.

I'm surprised something like that happened on a set by a Swedish director.

Fuck those assholes.

So viral that most here didn't know about it until Steve's post?

I say it still does well. $55m finish

Pretty sure it just happened today. Will surely have an effect.

Hate it happened, but love how a film shoots itself in the foot like that.

Yeah. Just seen that.

PETA is now calling for a boycott of the film. Is it now dead in the water?

The dog is still alive from what I saw in the video

Hehe. I meant the film..

I thought this looked really cute and was really looking forward to it but I just don't think I can support this film anymore. I love the message of the film but their purpose is not to be put into dangerous situations that they don't want to be in for our enjoyment. Pretty sure my friends won't feel right seeing it anymore either.

The studio is defending the treatment of Hercules (the stunt dog) and it's true he wasn't harmed. Still, it's painful to see the dog was clearly unwilling to get in the water. I don't see how the film avoids financial damage, especially since it's been trending across major social media platforms.

That said, even thoroughbreds have bad days and refuse to leave the gate. This is hitting hard, though, because dogs are beloved parts of the family. I don't agree with the full weight of PETA's statements and will withhold final judgment until the studio releases the findings of their investigation.

Ummm if the dog didn't want to go in the water, they shouldn't have pushed him. Simple as that. No investigation needed. If a human actor (or a stuntman) for some reason didn't want to do something they wouldn't push him into anything, they would find a replacement. But this being a helpless animal they could just push him into the water and get the scene they wanted. I'm kind of hoping this movie gets shelved forever as a warning.

Also it has 1.0/10 on IMDb. LOL.

I'd prefer to see the entire video. But the damage may already be done.

I saw the movie last night. In the movie's water scenes, the dog is shown jumping bravely into the water and swims confidently. If the dog exhibited any fear, resistence, or struggling like in the video clip, that became useless footage that had no place in the movie and was a waste of all the crew's time.

That said, the "cruelty" doesn't seem that bad to me considering I've seen dogs react similarly or worse when they get their first bath.

I doubt a trained animal (let's not get into the "training" itself) would show reaction similar to their first bath.

God what a disastrous last couple of hours it has been for this film. I'm glad the studio atleast addressed it and that the dog wasn't hurt, but it looks like the damage has already been done.

It's not about hurting the dog. Surely based on the footage, the dog didn't suffer physical damage. But abuse is abuse. You wouldn't force a person into an act they want no part of, why force a dog? It was scared so at that point, it should have been stopped.

Dogs don't generally like baths. True. But they aren't in any danger of drowning from them. Here the dog doesn't want to do it and then almost dies.

I have no idea why they didn't just use CGI for the scene.

The studio needs to do damage control. Donate a good portion of ticket sales to an animal charity. I must have had at least 5 friends share this news on Facebook today and say they weren't seeing the movie anymore. The movie is screwed.

I hope the damage done to this movie will cause other movies using animals to be more careful and caring in their treatment of them.

The L.A. Premiere has been canceled.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/dog ... d=44910834

What a colossal fuckup Universal has here. This probably would have opened decently and been super-leggy and gotten an A from Cinemascore, but this seems to be doing genuine damage. I've seen seeing a lot of changed minds about watching this film on social media, and it's the kind of story that's gonna dominate any conversation about the film. Its potential has probably been sliced in half. At least they have Split this weekend, I guess.