Keiko was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979. He portrayed Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of preparing Keiko for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.
Franklin Wendell Welker is an American voice actor. He began his career in the 1960s, and holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits as of 2023, making him one of the most prolific voice actors in history. With his films earning a total worldwide box-office gross of $17.4 billion, he is also the third-highest-grossing actor as of 2011.
Free Willy is a 1993 American family drama film, directed by Simon Wincer, produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Jennie Lew Tugend, written by Keith A. Walker and Corey Blechman from a story by Walker and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures under their Family Entertainment imprint. The film stars Jason James Richter in his film debut, Lori Petty, Jayne Atkinson, August Schellenberg, and Michael Madsen with the eponymous character, Willy, played by Keiko. The story is about an orphaned boy who befriends a captive orca, Willy, at an ailing amusement park. When he discovers that the park owners plan to dispose of Willy, he hatches a scheme to break him out of captivity.
Jason James Richter is an American actor and musician. He is best known for his role in the Free Willy film series as Jesse, the boy who befriends Willy the orca.
Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero is a 1998 direct-to-video animated superhero film, the second film based on Batman: The Animated Series, taking place between the end of the show and the start of The New Batman Adventures. Kevin Conroy and Michael Ansara reprise their respective roles from the series as the two title characters. It was produced by Warner Bros. Animation as a marketing tie-in with Batman & Robin and was animated overseas by Koko Enterprises and Dong Yang Animation in South Korea. The film won the Annie Award for Best Home Video Animation.
Reino Aventura was an amusement park located in Tlalpan in the south-western part of Mexico City. It opened to the public in March 1982 as the biggest amusement park in Latin America.
Six Flags México is a amusement park located in the Tlalpan forest and borough, on the southern edge of Mexico City, Mexico. It is owned and operated by Six Flags, and is the most visited theme park in Latin America with 2.8 million annual visitors. It was previously known as Reino Aventura when it was Mexican-owned and featured the orca whale Keiko as its principal attraction.
Kenneth Brower is an American writer known for his natural environment writings. His published works include articles with the National Geographic Society, The Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Audubon, and several other periodicals.
Around the World with Willy Fog is a Spanish animated television adaptation of the 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne produced by Spanish studio BRB Internacional and Televisión Española, with animation by Japanese studio Nippon Animation, that was first broadcast on TVE1 weekly between 8 January and 15 July 1984.
August Werner Schellenberg was a Canadian actor. He played Randolph in the first three installments of the Free Willy film series (1993–1997) as well as characters in Black Robe (1991), The New World (2005), and dozens of other films and television shows.
Warner Bros. Family Entertainment was the family division label of Warner Bros. Entertainment. It released numerous theatrical and direct-to-video family-oriented films and television shows.
Jean-Michel Cousteau is a French oceanographic explorer, environmentalist, educator and film producer. The first son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, he is the father of Fabien Cousteau and Céline Cousteau.
Free Willy 3: The Rescue is a 1997 American family film directed by Sam Pillsbury and written by John Mattson. Released by Warner Bros. under their Warner Bros. Family Entertainment banner, it is the sequel to Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home in addition to being the third film in the Free Willy franchise and final installment of the original storyline as well as the last to be released theatrically. Jason James Richter and August Schellenberg reprise their roles from the previous films while Annie Corley, Vincent Berry and Patrick Kilpatrick joined the cast. The story revolves around Jesse and Randolph attempting to stop a group of whalers, led by its ruthless captain, from illegally hunting Willy while secretly receiving help from an unlikely source involving the captain's young son after an accident changed his view on whales.
"Childhood" is a 1995 song composed and recorded by American singer Michael Jackson. It was released as a track on Jackson's 1995 studio album HIStory, and was released as a double A-side with Jackson's single "Scream".
Free Willy is an animated television series, inspired by the 1993 film of the same name. This television show was produced by Warner Bros. Television, Regency Enterprises, and the Canadian company Nelvana for Warner Bros. Studios.
Keiko is a special single by Lucerito, dedicated to the orca Keiko that starred in the first of the three Free Willy movies. When the whale was sold to the Reino Aventura, the label of Lucerito decided to release this single due to the fame of the whale.
Orcas, also known as Killer whales, have appeared in several movies and many documentaries.
Free Willy is a media franchise from Warner Bros. that started with the 1993 film Free Willy that went on to become a sleeper hit at the box office. The original series primarily follows a street kid named Jesse who befriends an orca named Willy and eventually develops a strong connection. While trying to juggle his newly found life, he and Willy are challenged with overcoming or defeating various hazards to the ocean or Willy himself including corporate greed, hunters, poachers, and oil disasters.
Free Willy is a 1993 American family drama film.
