20 Things You Didn't Know About O Brother, Where Art Thou?
4. The CGI Cows Were So Convincing That The American Humane Association Complained About Animal Abuse
We all know the "no animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture" disclaimer that appears at the end of virtually every movie. We say "virtually" because anyone looking for those familiar words in the credits for O Brother, Where Art Thou? won't be able to find them. That, however, is not because the Coens are secretly making animal snuff films.
Instead of the usual credit, the American Humane Association (the people responsible for the "no animals were harmed..." tag) gave O Brother the somewhat stranger text: "scenes which may appear to place an animal in jeopardy were simulated."
This was because the Association really struggled to believe that the scene in which Baby Face Nelson runs down a cow with his car wasn't staged for real and considered not lending their support to the movie at all.
CGI was still a relative novelty at the time, certainly for a film outside of the fantasy blockbuster milieu, so perhaps it's understandable that they needed convincing that such an effect could be done digitally.
Indeed, Digital Domain, the effects house responsible for the bank robber's bovine slaughter, didn't actually make a CGI cow for O Brother, Where Art Thou? Instead they simply repurposed one they had already developed to be eaten by a giant crocodile in Lake Placid.
No real animals may have been harmed in the making of this motion picture, but that digital cow's really been put through the wringer!