UPDATE: The Hangover Part 2 Monkey Is Now Addicted to Cigarettes, Todd Phillips Regretfully Reports
Maybe including a monkey in The Hangover Part II was not director Todd Phillips's finest idea. Earlier this month, the Motion Picture Association of America (rightly) complained about a sequence in which the denim jacketed primate simulates oral sex on Zach Galifianakis and Warner Bros. was forced to pull the the trailer from theaters. And now, officials at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are (rightly) outraged that Crystal, the capuchin monkey who appears in the film, cannot quit cigarettes after being taught to smoke on the Hangover: Part II set in Bangkok. UPDATE: The Hangover 2 monkey never actually smoked cigarettes, Phillips says.
Phillips explained the unfortunate situation to Total Film Magazine:
"I wanted the monkey to smoke so we had to train her to. Now I have PETA after me because the monkey's become addicted to cigarettes. She was just shooting Cameron Crowe's movie We Bought A Zoo. And the monkey won't stop smoking."
At least the monkey gets its own promotional poster? But then again, that won't cure lung cancer. Good luck sleeping at night, Todd Phillips.
UPDATED 4/16: Todd Phillips explains to Movieline that his quotes were meant as a joke. Read his full explanation here.
· Todd Phillips Under Fire From PETA For Smoking Monkey [Total Film Magazine via TheFanCarpet.com]
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Comments
Going to go out on a limb here, but how about not giving the monkey any more cigarettes, or at least The Patch?
Is this the first Monkey to have a Monkey on its back??
Inspired! hahaha
Does anyone actually believe this?
Or maybe he's trying to drum up some nonexistent controversy and make him and his movie seem far more dangerous and interesting than it really is. Which is kind of how I feel about the first one.
You can't possibly believe this?! I worked on the film and the monkey never smoked. It was CGI.
Todd Phillips is a comedy writer and director. He was obviously making a joke.
If this is true, who keeps giving this monkey cigarettes? Does it have an older brother monkey who has been kicked out of college and still hooks up with underage monkeys?
Leave it to movieline to take an off the cuff remark, a joke, and twist it into a serious story. You guys must be desperate for controversy since nobody cares about Charlie Sheen anymore.
That is a really good tip especially to those
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A must read post!