The orca who played Willy couldn't do the jump. Keiko was living in a deteriorating tank at a Mexico City amusement park when the production found him. US aquariums had refused to let the film shoot on their premises. The iconic leap used an animatronic double.
Warner Bros. put a toll-free number in the credits as a conservation gesture. More than 300,000 people called. Almost all of them demanded Keiko himself be freed.
That call built a real campaign. The Free Willy Keiko Foundation raised over $7 million. Keiko was airlifted to Oregon in 1996, then flown to Iceland in 1998. In 2002, he swam 800 miles to Norway on his own.
He died there in 2003, never fully part of a wild pod. But he made it to the ocean. People on Backlot are watching this one.
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