PETA to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer: Make Siegfried & Roy Series Animal-Free

For Immediate Release:
November 3, 2022

Contact:
Robin Goist 202-483-7382

For its next trick, Apple’s upcoming scripted series about magicians Siegfried and Roy should exclusively feature computer-generated big cats—that is, if executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer listen to PETA. Most Hollywood productions are now using computer-generated imagery (CGI), for a multitude of good reasons, including not stressing wild animals.

“Hollywood trainers have been repeatedly caught using violence and abusive training behind the scenes so that on set, animals will perform on cue,” writes PETA Associate Director Lauren Thomasson in a letter sent today to Howard and Grazer. “This story can be told without continuing the cruel animal exploitation that Siegfried & Roy were criticized for and that resulted in the nearly fatal attack on Roy by a wild animal.”

PETA and law-enforcement investigations have shown animals kept in deplorable conditions by animal suppliers for Hollywood, and a PETA eyewitness caught a tiger supplier for Life of Pi and The Interview viciously whipping a young tiger. Following a push from PETA, Kate McKinnon and Universal Content Productions used CGI in Joe vs. Carole, the scripted series about Tiger King’s notorious “Joe Exotic.”

The Siegfried & Roy series is being adapted from the Apple podcast Wild Things: Siegfried & Roy, which featured discussions with PETA experts.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment” and which opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview—notes that CGI has been used to portray wild animals in many productions, including It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Mank, The Lion King, War for the Planet of the Apes, The Walking Dead, and Noah. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.