Get ready for another underwater adventure — Warner Bros. has just announced a new version of FREE WILLY.
“Produced by Anthony and Joe Russo’s AGBO,” Variety reported of the project. “The team has tapped Mary-Margaret Kunze (MILLER’S GIRL, ICEBREAKER) and Jade Halley Bartlett (MILLER’S GIRL, THE BOROUGHS) to write a screenplay for the new movie.”
Angela Russo-Otstot, Michael Disco, Courtney Baker and Kassee Whiting are set to produce, with the Russo brothers and Lauren Shuler Donner, who has worked on the FREE WILLY franchise since the 1993 original, as executive producers.
FREE WILLY, which told the story of an orphaned boy who befriends a captive orca, was praised by Movieguide® for its themes of “love, acceptance, restitution and redemption as well as the vital need for and importance of family and an emphasis on the proper and kind treatment of animals.”
It spawned two sequels and made a huge impact on young viewers, sharing the importance of conservation and taking care of wildlife.
“[It] blew the lid off the captivity industry,” Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, a national advocacy organization in Canada, told CBC. “People were forced to confront the reality of what that captivity meant, and the cost and the toll it exerted on those beautiful creatures.”
Keiko, the orca whale who portrayed Willy in the original movie, became an overnight sensation, and people all over the world called for his release from captivity. Warner Bros. partnered with the International Marine Mammal Project to establish the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, which eventually saw the whale moved from his too-small tank at a Mexico City amusement park to the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
“He was very affectionate and docile with his trainers,” Jim Burke, who started working at the aquarium in 1997 and now serves as the aquarium’s director of animal care, told PDX Monthly. “If there were people in the viewing window, he would come down and look directly at them. It was a pretty amazing experience.”
In 1998, Keiko was transported to Iceland, where he was reintegrated into the wild. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 26.
“A lot of things changed after Keiko,” Burke explained. “He opened up a lot of people’s eyes to animal welfare, and caring for things — whether that’s an animal that can’t be released back into the wild, or just observing and caring for our oceans, to give animals in the wild the best shot.”
Now, Warner Bros.’ new version of FREE WILLY will bring that message of conservationism to a whole new generation.
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