Monster Trucks

A boy befriends a monster who learns how to drive his broken truck.    
  • Starring: Rob Lowe, Thomas Lennon
  • Director(s): Chris Wedge
  • Producer(s): Mary Parent    
  • Screenwriter(s): Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger, Derek Connolly, Matthew Robinson
  • Distributor: Paramount Pictures
  • Animal Coordinator: Canine Costars, Beyond Bears, Virtue Studio Ranch
  • Release Date: Friday, March 18, 2016

Featured Animal Action

Throughout the film, one of the characters has a pet dog seen performing such mild action as sitting/standing/lying, being held or petted, and walking/running on or off leash. For all of these scenes, trainers used hand signals and verbal commands to cue the mild action, which the trained dog was accustomed to performing. The barking/growling was also a trained behavior.

In the scenes where the dog reacts to the monster’s movements trainers used hand signals to get the dog to bark, stare, etc.

In the scenes in the boy’s garage where we see the horses in the stables in the background, the horses were brought to the set by trainers. In one of those scenes, one of the horses reacts to the monster and rears back. Trainers cued the horse to rear back using their voice and hand signals.

The scene where the girl rides her horse alongside the speeding truck was filmed over a few days. Horse starts at one end of the road with the truck. Horse and truck move down road at steady pace looking like they are racing. Horse hardly moved faster than a lope and the truck moved no faster than the horse. The truck maintained several horse lengths distance behind the horse and rider. The horse was ridden by a trainer who knew how to jump obstacles and ride the horse professionally.

In the scene where we see the man place the lizards on the rock, trainers brought the lizards to the set and prepped the actor on how to handle them. They were immediately placed back into the aquarium right after they were used.