Anne Hathaway has one firm rule for Hollywood: if a dog is endangered in your movie, it should be rated R – no exceptions.
The Oscar-winning actress made the call in an interview with Complex while promoting her new sci-fi survival film The End of Oak Street, which opened in Philippine cinemas on August 12.
"I feel like movies that kill dogs should automatically be rated R," Anne said.
Her co-star Ewan McGregor, who plays her husband in the film, agreed on the spot.
The subject came up for a reason. Ever since the trailer showed Starbuck, the Platt family's Australian cattle dog, moviegoers have been flooding social media with the same worry: please do not kill the dog. It is a fear many Filipino viewers know well, especially those who treat their family pet as a member of the household.
Anne pointed to one film in particular for making audiences this jumpy.
"Doesn't matter if anybody curses, doesn't matter if there's violence, if a dog dies, R-rated… I think everybody's so traumatized by John Wick because I've been seeing those [comments for our movie] like, 'They better not kill the dog.' I'm like, 'Which movies are out there killing dogs that everybody's scared that we're just casually doing it in movies now?'"
She then gave worried fans something close to an assurance.
"Somebody was like, 'Can you just let the audiences know that, like, it's all gonna be OK?'" Anne added about Starbuck's fate in her new movie. "We break rules in this movie, that might not be one of them. Don't worry."
For those who need the backgrounder: John Wick, released in 2014, opens with Keanu Reeves as a retired hitman whose beagle puppy Daisy – the last gift from his dying wife – is killed by thugs who break into his home. That single scene sets off four films of revenge, and more than a decade later, it is still the reference point whenever a dog appears on screen in an action movie.
The End of Oak Street is not that kind of film, though it does put its dog through the wringer. Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell of It Follows and produced by J.J. Abrams, the movie is set in a quiet American suburb in 1982. A mysterious cosmic event tears Oak Street away from the rest of the town and drops the neighborhood in a prehistoric world, leaving the Platt family – Anne as Denise, McGregor as Greg, and Maisy Stella and Christian Convery as their two kids – to survive among dinosaurs while looking for a way home. Starbuck goes missing early in the chaos, and much of the film keeps the audience guessing.
Critics have been kind to it. The film holds a "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers praising its throwback Steven Spielberg energy and its non-stop chase scenes, even as some found the family drama thin and the ending too convenient. Starbuck, played by real-life dogs Buzz and Brisket, has drawn some of the warmest reactions, with Warner Bros. even giving him his own poster.
The timing of Anne's comment is hard to miss. Just days before her interview, Netflix released The Last House, a sci-fi thriller starring Greta Lee and Wagner Moura about a family sealed inside their home with no way out. In it, the family's aging golden retriever, Cassidy, is shot by the father, Jason, after the dog's medication runs out and it can no longer stand.
There is one wrinkle in Anne's rule, and it comes from her own filmography. In Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, where she plays Queen Penelope, Odysseus comes home to Ithaca after 20 years and is recognized by his old dog Argos, who dies soon after – not by violence, but of old age. It remains one of the most quietly devastating moments in the film.
The End of Oak Street is now showing in Philippine cinemas and IMAX. It is Anne's fourth release this year, after Mother Mary, The Devil Wears Prada 2, and The Odyssey, with the Colleen Hoover adaptation Verity still to come in October.
—By Paolo Lim