Vin Diesel and friends are filming the eighth Fast & Furious movie on Iceland’s frozen Lake Mývatn right now. In a strange and sad happenstance, it sounds like one of their styrofoam ice-props blew away and hit a live horse so hard that the animal had to be euthanized.
Iceland Review tells us that the country’s Environmental Agency oversees the filming that’s going down on the ice.
Surely they had reservations about the irony of a styrofoam iceberg in the first place, but I can’t imagine the death of a local horse (named “Jupiter”) is going to improve the film’s relationship with the local government.
How exactly the prop attacked the horse remains unclear– TMZ says the “iceberg” hit the animal directly, Metro UK seems to think Jupiter was so scared of the wind-propelled object that it ran into a lava field. Another horse was also said to have been injured.
The result of both stories is tragically the same; Jupiter did not make it. The animal was not part of the movie.
It’s sad news for everyone involved really, and of course Jupiter’s owner in particular. Horse people really seem to bond with their animals and I can’t imagine how upsetting it would be to have your pet taken in such an unfortunate way.
The studio putting the movie together hasn’t released any official statements about the incident, but apparently the production will be paying out the value of the horse and a damaged fence to its owner.
Barring any further incidents, the movie is scheduled to come out in April 2017.
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