It was actually his Ali trainer Darrell Foster that originally pitched the idea, Smith shared. “We had to pitch it to the studio. We went to go talk to Alan Horn, who was the head of Warner Bros. at the time,” he said. We walk in and… Alan Horn has four giant pictures of the most gorgeous German Shepherds behind his desk. He loves dogs. And he is telling us the story that he just lost one of his German Shepherds. We’re like, ‘Oh no. Oh no.'”
Writer and producer Akiva Goldsman was not deterred. “Akiva says, ‘Alan Will has something he wants to pitch you,'” Smith continued “with a laugh,” per the trade. “And Alan Horn is in tears, he’s crying, holding a picture of his German Shepherd and he says, ‘Guys, I promise you, your lead actor cannot choke a dog to death in an American movie.'” While Smith thought that “seemed like a fair assessment,” Goldsman found a loophole. The team ended up shooting the scene like a “stage play,” so the whole thing was “just played on [Smith’s] face.”
“You hear the sound of the paws, the nails scratching on the floor until they slow down and stop. It’s super painful, but the audience doesn’t have to suffer it,” Smith continued. “[Akiva] figures out how to find that sweet spot in the middle artistically and creatively that lands the idea without destroying the audience with it.” Audiences themselves might take issue with that conclusion. “People walk out when that dog dies,” Goldsman said of the film’s test screenings. “Never more walkouts in anything I’ve done than when that dog died.”
If you’re trying to fend off those painful memories, this might be a salve. Superman faced a similar dilemma when test audiences did not react well to Krypto the Superdog getting punched, and the team made a different choice. The new Warner Bros. film is officially dog-punch-free, so you’re safe to grab a ticket and shove that sadness right back into the box.
