HBO Cancels “Luck”

Watercooler

By Nads | Thursday, March 15, 2012 | 4:42 am | 15 Comments
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Posted in: Watercooler

HBO decided to cancel Luck after their third horse death. They were in the middle of shooting their second season when everything went down, and thankfully they did right thing. It breaks my heart to hear about the horses dying.

They released the statement, “It is with heartbreak that executive producers David Milch and Michael Mann together with HBO have decided to cease all future production on the series Luck. Safety is always of paramount concern. We maintained the highest safety standards throughout production, higher in fact than any protocols existing in horseracing anywhere with many fewer incidents than occur in racing or than befall horses normally in barns at night or pastures. While we maintained the highest safety standards possible, accidents unfortunately happen and it is impossible to guarantee they won’t in the future. Accordingly, we have reached this difficult decision. We are immensely proud of this series, the writing, the acting, the filmmaking, the celebration of the culture of horses, and everyone involved in its creation.”

I know PETA and many others are very happy that the series got canceled. I’m all for a show with animals, but when they’re mistreated it’s NEVER okay. I’m glad this show is done, and am so sad for the poor horses…

About

Although comedy is her profession, Nadine has accomplished a lot in her young age. She is a national champion black belt, a world-class soccer player, and an avid snowboarder. She started playing soccer at the age of 4, and continued playing through college where she majored in Biology, but quickly realized her destiny was to tell jokes, not to wear a lab coat. So she decided to be funny while finishing her Bachelors Degree in biology and continued on to get her M.B.A. Nadine’s comedy style is much like her athleticism, fearless. She’s made her way up the comedy ladder very quickly, and has become a club favorite at many of the country’s top comedy clubs, including the Improv chain. Performing in the Boston Comedy Festival and being noted as the “one of the youngest and brightest up and comers” and traveling to the Middle East to entertain the troops are just a few of her notable accomplishments. These days Nadine splits time between the stage, a radio studio, her computer blogging, and a television studio. Nadine’s TV, Radio, Writing credits include: national commercials, talking head roles on E! Entertainment, Showtime’s Hot Tamales Live, The Skinny: Fat Free News, The Sunny Side of The Truth: Real World Hollywood, TVgasm, Zazreport, Daddy’s Girls, Jerseylicious, celebrity interviews on Mania TV, a weekly half-hour television show that syndicates to colleges across the country for National Lampoon and a nightly radio show on XM Satellite Radio.

15 Comments

  1. 1
    maryedith
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 7:54 am

    I’m very sorry to hear this news. They did the right thing, of course, but it’s an incredible show.

  2. 2
    gerritv
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 8:08 am

    Gee Nads, I never read anything about the horses being ‘mistreated’. Where did you find that?

  3. 3
    maryedith
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 8:15 am

    Thanks, gerritv. I was assuming she meant if the horses died they must have been mistreated somehow, and I wanted to protest but didn’t have the … uh…nads. I’m sure those horses were treated better than any horses on any race track anywhere.

  4. 4
    Pikey578
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 8:25 am

    According to what I read, the horses were NOT mistreated – however, you can never be sure how an animal will react in all situations and they didn’t want any more accidents to happen. From what I understand, the last horse was injured walking back to the stable and had to be euthanized due to its’ injuries. (It is almost impossible to fix a broken bone in a horses leg).

    PETA says that they will be back to protest if the show is ever picked up again.

  5. 5
    Nads
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 9:40 am

    The people from the Ethical Treatment of Animals issued this statement, “Knowing that old, unfit, and drugged horses were forced to race for this series, PETA is glad that HBO has finally decided to cancel the show. We thank the whistleblowers who refused to let these horses’ deaths go unnoticed. Should Milch, Mann, and HBO decide to start the series up again, PETA will be calling on them, as we have done from the start, to use stock racing footage instead of endangering horses for entertainment purposes. PETA has called on law enforcement to investigate the deaths of the horses used on the set and to bring charges as appropriate.”

    I can’t say they were mistreated, but if they were using old and unfit horses…that’s bad. I know accidents happen, but three horses is a lot for one production. And of course PETA has been saying that even though they had set guidelines that the horses had to pass, that they were strong enough.

  6. 6
    NotWithoutMyTV NotWithoutMyTV
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 10:28 am

    If it takes three dead horses to halt “Luck”, how many dead guidos would it take to polish off Jersey Shore?

  7. 7
    SuburBint
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 10:35 am

    Seven.

  8. 8
    Gypsy Gypsy
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 10:59 am

    Soon to be 8.

  9. 9
    sarcasatire sarcasatire
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 11:22 am

    Wow..have standards changed. Guess how many horses died while filming Ben-Hur? One hundred! Most deaths occurred in the filming of just one scene! And what did Hollywood do to the producers back then? Nothing. Just waited for filming to wrap so they could start handing out out Oscars!

    I don’t think the Luck horses were mistreated, I just think those bitches be clumsy. Hell, you make me run at top speed for twenty takes, I’m guaranteed to bust my ass in 15 of them.

    Luck’s vet shouldn’t have been so quick to euthanize. Sure, horses mend slowly, but she should’ve donated the horses to a farm, run by an old lady grateful for a donation from HBO. That way, Luck wouldn’t have “deaths”, only “injuries” to report. And as extras get injured on set every day, people would’ve just shrugged, then hired a few more.

  10. 10
    JasonR
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 12:26 pm

    I was unbelievably excited to see this show based on the amazing cast and HBO’s long tradition of Sunday night awesomeness, but I got about halfway through the pilot and was so bored I turned it off.

    I was searching for a way to drop in a “beating a dead horse” idiom into my comment but I’m tired and just don’t have the energy.

  11. 11
    NotWithoutMyTV NotWithoutMyTV
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 12:42 pm

    Race horse is good eatin. Especially the butt steaks, because all the whippin’ makes the meat good ‘n tender-like.

  12. 12
    Nads
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    woah!! A hundred horse??? DUDE!!! that’s like INSANE.

  13. 13
    Luna
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 1:21 pm

    Before the standards in filmmaking were raised, many animals, especially horses, died in the making of movies. You can’t really teach a horse how to “fall.” So, they would tie a line to the horses front hooves, and YANK when they wanted to make it seem the horse was falling. Unfortunately, this broke a LOT of horse’s legs. And as we’ve already discussed, you can’t fix those so well. Especially in the “good ol’ days” when movies like Ben-Hur were filmed.

  14. 14
    sarcasatire sarcasatire
    Posted March 15, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    Yea. And the same second unit director worked on another film that killed as many as 200 horses. Finally, the ASPCA stepped in and amended the safety regulations.

    The irony is, Hollywood didn’t release the film, so 200 horses died in vain. (They did, however, allow clips to be used in another video, so there’s that. )

    Here’s the article about the horse deaths, trips wires, and a Hollywood director’s intent on “getting the shot” at all costs. (The artlicle talks about 5 most wasteful films, scroll down to #1 http://www.cracked.com/article_19548_the-5-most-horrifyingly-wasteful-film-shoots_p2.html )

  15. 15
    Pikey
    Posted March 16, 2012 at 5:29 am

    You can’t just give a horse with a broken leg to a “Granny” for the following reasons:

    There’s a high risk of infection, and the horse may not sit still long enough for the bone to heal. Infections are most likely when the animal suffers a compound fracture, in which the bones tear through the skin of the leg. In this case, dirt from the track will grind into and contaminate the wound. To make matters worse, there isn’t much blood circulation in the lower part of a horse’s leg. (There’s very little muscle, either.) A nasty break below the knee could easily destroy these fragile vessels and deprive the animal of its full immune response at the site of the injury.

    It’s not easy to treat a horse with antibiotics, either. Since the animals are so big, you have to pump in lots of drugs to get the necessary effect. But if you use too many antibiotics, you’ll destroy the natural flora of its intestinal tract, which can lead to life-threatening, infectious diarrhea. You also have to worry about how the antibiotics will interact with large doses of painkillers, which can themselves cause ulcers.

    If the horse manages to avoid early infection, he might not make it through the recovery. First, he must wake up from anesthesia without reinjuring himself. Some Doctors use “water recovery.” That means they suspended in a warm swimming pool in a quiet room and then kept him there for as long as possible. Not all horses are willing to sit around in a sling, and the antsy ones can thrash about and break their limb all over again and may even break one that was fine previously.

    Doctors will often put down a horse that develops a nasty infection, reinjures its broken leg, or develops laminitis in its other hooves. (A horse that’s unable to stand will develop nasty sores and can be expected to die a slow and painful death.)

    So an injury that might seem frivolous (stepping into a gopher hole) can end up costing a horse its’ life…

    Sorry for being so long-winded!

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