When we last left Keiko, the killer-whale star of Warner Bros.' Free Willy, Michael Jackson no longer wanted to adopt him, he was suffering from a viral skin infection in a marine park in Mexico City, and Warner had a PR nightmare on the line. But after two years of turmoil, the whale tale has been reeled in.
The studio and New Regency Productions, which produced the $78-million- grossing film, recently announced plans to donate $2 million to the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, which will relocate the whale to the more congenial Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. Although the foundation will need approximately $10 million to build the facility, transfer the whale, rehabilitate and care for him, and eventually return him to his pod in Iceland, Warner's donation is also exactly the kind of publicity needed for Free Willy 2, due in late July.
Warner will share an undisclosed percentage of product-merchandising revenues with Keiko's fund and may throw benefit premieres. Others can help by simply buying a T-shirt, says David Phillips of Earth Island Institute, the marine environmental group that will oversee the fund. ''All the promotional partners will have a tie-in to the foundation,'' says Phillips. ''If you buy a Free Willy product, you'll be helping the whale and conservation.''
In addition to Warner's gesture, an anonymous $2 million donation has enabled the foundation to slate Keiko's moving date for November. In the meantime, don't look for him in Free Willy 2. The filmmakers used leftover footage from the first film and an animatronic whale to continue Willy's saga. ''It's been an interesting odyssey for Keiko,'' says Willy producer Jennie Lew Tugend.
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