PETA Not Crazy For Speed Racer

By Ryan 'The Rican with the Irish name' McLelland on July 3, 2007

The great news is the Wachowski brother's live-action version of Speed Racer will include Chim-Chim, the chimp who along with Speed's younger brother Spritle always get into trouble.  The bad news is the chimp is acting like a diva on set.

“We are in receipt of information that may upset you,” PETA wrote to the producer Joel Silver, the man behind such megahits as the “Matrix” and “Die Hard” series. “We’ve received several troubling complaints from people who have been on the ‘Speed Racer’ set and report that the main chimpanzee ‘actor’ has been beaten and has bitten one of the human actors.” PETA urged Silver to stop using the live critters and switch to animatronics.

“We appreciate the concerns of your organization,” came back the letter from movie company Warner Bros. “We also respect the vision and choices of the filmmakers with which we work. Every option on a film is carefully weighed, and for this production, the decision was made to use live animals.” 

A spokesperson confirmed that a chimp did chomp on a young actor, but said that the actor was treated and the animal was given a rest. She sent along assurances from the American Humane Society that no animals were being abused.

PETA isn’t satisfied. “No humane representative is closely monitoring those animals while off-set or during pre-production training, the very places where abuse is most likely to occur,” the organization wrote back, “so we regret to say that the assurances you offer are meaningless.”

No word if the chimp's name in the movie will now be changed to Chomp-Chomp.

Source:MSNBC