Keiko was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979. He was best known for his portrayal of 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 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 fourth-highest-grossing actor as of 2024.
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.
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 American 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.
Natsilane is the human hero of the "Blackfish" creation myth, one of the Tlingit and Haida stories about how the various supernatural animal species from the Tlingit culture of the American Northwest coast were created. These stories follow an almost dreamtime-like description of humans and other animal species living completely harmoniously. The animals are depicted as demi-gods, and are always referred to as proper singular nouns. There are other similar stories including how Raccoon got the rings on his tail and why Puma hides in the forest so much.
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.
Dwight Hubbard Little is an American film and television director, known for directing the films Marked for Death, Rapid Fire, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Murder at 1600 and Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. He has also directed several episodes of acclaimed television series such as 24, Prison Break, Dollhouse, Bones and Nikita. Little was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He studied film at USC.
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: Past, Present and Future, Book I, 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. The television show was produced by Warner Bros. Television, Regency Enterprises, Canadian company Nelvana and French company Le Studio Canal+ for Warner Bros. Studios.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh is a 1995 American supernatural horror film directed by Bill Condon and starring Tony Todd, Kelly Rowan, William O'Leary, Bill Nunn, Matt Clark and Veronica Cartwright. Written by Rand Ravich and Mark Kruger, it is a sequel to the 1992 film Candyman, which was an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story, "The Forbidden". Its plot follows a New Orleans schoolteacher who finds herself targeted by the Candyman, the powerful spirit of the murdered son of a slave who kills those who invoked him.
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: Escape from Pirate's Cove is a 2010 American family film written and directed by Will Geiger with the story by Cindy McCreery. It is a reboot as well as the fourth and final installment in the Free Willy film series. It stars Bindi Irwin, in her film debut, and Beau Bridges. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 23 March 2010 in the United States, and on 2 August in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
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.
