Chimp beaten on Christina Riccis set of Speed Racer

Apparently on the set of Christina Ricci's new movie "Speed Racer" there are reports of a chimp biting an actor.

The problem is that there are allegations that the chimp was beaten after it supposedly bit the actor. PETA is involved now.

“We are in receipt of information that may upset you,” PETA wrote to Joel Silver, the film’s producer. “We’ve received several troubling complaints from people who have been on the ‘Speed Racer’ set and report that the main chimpanzee ‘actor’ has been beaten and has bitten one of the human actors.”

MSNBC has reported that PETA went on to “urge Silver to stop using the live critters and switch to animatronics.”

Warner Brothers responded to PETA by stating "We appreciate the concerns of your organization. We also respect the vision and choices of the filmmakers with which we work. Every option on a film is carefully weighed, and for this production, the decision was made to use live animals.”

For Warner Brothers unfortunately, PETA is not satisfied and they are known to be very persistant.

PETA has already fired back saying “No humane representative is closely monitoring those animals while off-set or during pre-production training, the very places where abuse is most likely to occur, so we regret to say that the assurances you offer are meaningless.”

Speed Racer is due out May 8th, 2008, so the producers can only hope that any animal lovers out there will soon forget about this. Other wise the chimp scandal could cost Warner Brothers millions of dollars.