Air Bud Director To Write Handicapped Dolphin Story

To put it bluntly, dolphins are cute. They are smart, Flipper enchanted an entire generation, people fly across continents just to pet them, and some get really pissed off when you try and kill them. So when an inspirational story comes along about a boy and his injured pet dolphin, you know Hollywood is going to go crazier than Gary Busey with a mountain of cocaine to get it on film. Be prepared to saw "aww."

According to THR, Alcon Entertainment has hired Charles Martin Smith (the guy who directed Air Bud) to write A Dolphin's Tale, the story of a dolphin, named Winter, who, after losing its tail in a crab trap, is rescued by a boy who then rallies his home town to build the aquatic mammal a prosthetic tail before sending it off to live in the local aquarium. The story was previously featured on NBC's Today, which you can watch here.

I'll stomach the fact that this is yet another cutesy animal flick, because I know that I am not the target demographic, but making the title a pun on animal deformities? That is simply in bad taste. The story is supposedly an inspiration to people with disabilities, but the title would seem to suggest that it would be okay to nickname a one-legged man "Hoppy."

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.