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"PETA representatives protested the premiere of Zookeeper this week over claims that animals were mistreated during filming. Animal advocates lined the block outside the Zookeeper screening in LA carrying signs which read &amp;#039;Cruelty Has No Place In Show Business&amp;#039;, but director Frank Coraci told Entertainment Weekly that he was undeterred by the demonstrations. Coraci said: &amp;quot;It doesn&amp;#039;t hamper my good mood or my celebration at all because I am completely secure with what happened on our set and believe we did everything we could to treat the animals well.&amp;quot; PETA&amp;#039;s criticisms against studio Sony Pictures and Zookeeper&amp;#039;s crew stem from the 2009 death of giraffe Tweet while the movie was in production. Coraci expressed regret over the giraffe&amp;#039;s death, but contended that the animal died only after it had finished work on Zookeeper, saying: &amp;quot;It was actually a very sad day when Tweet the giraffe died. She was a friend and a big part of the movie. I cried. But she had finished shooting already like a couple of days before [she] passed in [her] enclosure at the zoo.&amp;quot; The charge that Zookeeper enlisted an elephant owned by animal trainers Have Truck Will Travel, a company criticized for alleged mistreatment of its creatures, has also been denied by the director. PETA hasn&amp;#039;t relented on its calls for a boycott of the film and has encouraged movie studios to use computer-generated imagery or animatronics instead of involving live animals for future movies. Zookeeper, which stars Kevin James and features the voices of Adam Sandler and Rosario Dawson, is now playing in US cinemas and opens on July 29 in the UK. &amp;gt; Kevin James becomes father for third time Watch footage of the PETA protests at Zookeeper&amp;#039;s premiere below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a328958/peta-protest-zookeeper-premiere-over-giraffe-death/>