- Anjelica Huston discussing Travis — the chimpanzee who was shot dead after attacking his owner. If you’d like to help prevent this kind of incident in the future, ask Governor Rell to ban primates as pets by signing this petition.

Anjelica Huston

The award-winning actress recently penned a letter to The Mummy director Stephen Sommers in an effort to keep real monkeys out of his new Tarzan movie.

Huston writes, “Critics lauded King Kong in particular for the emotional depth that the giant ape displayed – without any real apes suffering in the process. Can I please hear that you similarly plan to use only creative alternatives to great apes in Tarzan?”

Anjelica is most definitely on to something! And if you don’t believe us, just ask our good friends over at Save the Chimps — an insanely wonderful organization that provides a permanent sanctuary for the lifelong care of chimpanzees rescued from research laboratories, entertainment and the pet trade. We think they rock! 

These days it’s sooooo easy to make computer generated animals look real , so there’s absolutely no reason to put animals through such needless pain and suffering. Please join Anjelica Huston and your lovely Ecorazzi team and leave a comment below asking Stephen Sommers to use computer generated apes in Tarzan. It just makes sense!

“It’s a sad story that starts when the animals are babies, when they are torn away from their mothers and forced to depend upon human trainers,” says Anjelica. “Great ape mothers are fiercely protective of their newborns, which means that they must be tricked, sedated, or forcibly restrained when their infants are pulled from their arms. This cruel practice leaves lifelong emotional scars on both the mothers—who go into a deep depression—and the babies.”

You can check out the full story over on PETA’s site, nomoremonkeybusiness.com, or watch the video featuring Huston here.

Channeling his love for the Ents in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, actor Sean Astin is set to help voice a new animated film that revolves around a couple of gophers, some old trees, and a nasty highway developer. Joining Astin will be Giovanni Ribisi, Ron Perlman and Anjelica Huston in Spirit of the Forest, an eco-fairy tale from Fantastic Films International and Dygra Films.

“Astin and Ribisi play two gopher friends whose home is threatened when an evil businesswoman (Huston) plans to tear down their forest to build a highway. With the help of an old oak tree (Perlman), the animals and their friends fight back with a vengeance.”

Said Astin of his decision to sign up for the part, “In ‘Lord of the Rings,’ my favorite element in the story was the Ents, these massive trees getting cut down that fought for their own survival; in ‘Spirit,’ the trees also come to life. It’s another way of telling a story that needs to continue to be told. Progress comes at a price.”

If Spain-based Dygra’s track record is any indication (two previous animated films have won the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar) than Spirit might be one to watch for. The film will premiere first in Spain this September before showing internationally later in the Fall.

via hollywood reporter