Cruise movie bulls hurt women
2009-11-23 11:35
Madrid - Two women were slightly hurt on Sunday when they were struck by bulls that escaped the set of a new film that stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, local police and officials said.
The seven bulls roamed loose on the narrow streets of Cadiz in southern Spain for about 40 minutes before they were recaptured on a beach, a local police spokesperson told the Europa Press news agency.
Filming of Knight and Day - an action comedy directed by James Mangold and scheduled to be released in the US in July 2010 - was suspended by the mayor's office after the incident.
"Nothing will be filmed in Cadiz until we have a new plan that guarantees the safety of local residents," a spokesperson for the mayor of Cadiz told the Diario de Cadiz newspaper.
The film's Spanish producer Calle Cruzada said he did not know how the bulls managed to escape.
Abuse
Rehearsals started on Monday for scenes that imitate the famous bull run held each year in Pamplona, northern Spain. Cruise and Diaz are not expected to arrive in Cadiz until next weekend.
Last week CAS International, Europe's largest anti-bullfighting organisation, urged opponents of the ritual to write to the two Hollywood stars to ask them to reconsider their participation in the film.
"Apart from the fact that bulls are abused for this movie, we also fear that after seeing this movie, even more American and other tourists will participate in the bull runs in Pamplona and elsewhere in Spain," it said in a statement.
The Pamplona bull run is held in the city each July and was made famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
During the run, crowds race ahead of a pack of thundering bulls, which can weigh up to 700kg along an 825 metre course over cobbled streets to the town bullring where the animals are killed by matadors later in the day.