When director Gabriela Cowperthwaite (with my help, as an associate producer and co-writer) set out to make the documentary Blackfish, neither she (nor I) were setting out to change SeaWorld. Instead, we wanted to craft a factual, compelling film that tried to explain why SeaWorld's largest killer whale, Tilikum, killed his highly experienced trainer, Dawn Brancheau, in February 2010.

We were working so hard to pull together the footage, interviews, and research needed to tell a complicated story that we had little time to think about what would happen after the film was finished. Now that the film is in circulation, everyone involved in the production has been both impressed and surprised by the degree to which it has has inspired