Activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals tells The Hollywood Reporter it’s received assurances from Apple’s Wild Things, about the late Las Vegas performance duo known as Siegfried & Roy, that the big cats integral to the entertainers’ act will be purely digital effects. Their show ended after an infamous tiger attack in 2003, which left Roy Horn critically injured.
The eight-episode limited series, starring Jude Law as Siegfried Fischbacher and Andrew Garfield as Horn, is headed by Only Murders in the Building showrunner John Hoffman. In 2024, PETA played a catalytic, Javert-like role in HBO’s hit docuseries Chimp Crazy, as a narrative counterweight to exotic animal broker Tonia Haddix.
“By using CGI tigers instead of dragging abused animals onto set, Wild Things proves that even Siegfried & Roy’s story can be told without repeating the same cruel animal exploitation that left Roy fighting for his life after a stressed tiger lashed out,” says Lauren Thomasson, the activist group’s head of animals in film and television, in a statement. “PETA is celebrating Wild Things’ compassionate choice to rely solely on Hollywood magic for the big cats — and is hopeful that the series’ message will underscore why the dangerous, archaic use of wild animals for entertainment is becoming a vanishing act.”
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment. Chris Lawrence, a Siegfried & Roy big cat trainer who was also attacked onstage by the same tiger, supports Wild Things’ move to CGI. (A story based on his own experience, which he first publicly discussed in 2019 with THR, had been in development in recent years through Chernin Entertainment and Hulu.) However, Lawrence, who had factual issues with the podcast the series is based on — and is concerned about how they may carry over to the Apple project — tells THR that he rejects PETA’s characterization of both Siegfried & Roy’s work with animals in general and the mauling in particular. “PETA means well, but I don’t think they are as informed as they think they are,” he says.
Lawrence, like the illusionists, contends that the big cats in the show “were cared for and loved beyond any animal you can possibly imagine. Most importantly, they enjoyed doing the show, and learned how to do it through positive reinforcement. They were introduced to the stage from a very young age.”
As for the tiger (a 400-pound, 7-foot-long, striped, white male named Mantacore), Lawrence insists the attack, which has left him with PTSD, was a tragic accident attributable to an exceptionally rare moment of onstage miscommunication between Horn and a seasoned animal performer. “Mantacore got confused,” he says.
In Hollywood, PETA is quick to contact producers after animal-related projects are announced and then denounce them if its demands are not met. The group’s efforts — along with CGI’s cost savings and the lack of credibility of the industry’s No Animals Were Harmed safety designation — have meant that, increasingly, most high-profile films and TV shows have gone the digital route.
PETA relentlessly pressured Siegfried & Roy, the men as well as the brand, in life and after death. Since the 1990s, the organization filed welfare complaints with various authorities and protested their stage shows at The Mirage. After the pair died — Horn in 2020, Fischbacher in 2021 — the group explains it pushed the casino’s new ownership to close its Secret Garden, a zoo-like enclosure attraction, and transfer the duo’s big cats to an accredited sanctuary.
As for Wild Things, “we received a report that a PETA protest will be featured in the show and so we hope the writers will depict activists as the caring, compassionate people they are, while also showing the importance of these demonstrations in ending the abuse of animals in entertainment,” says a spokesperson for the organization, adding that while PETA has asked to review the script, “the production has not yet taken us up on that request.”
