The Hobbit movie set killed 27 animals, wranglers say

Never let reality get in the way of making your pretentious blockbuster movie. Animal wranglers who worked on the much-anticipated "The Hobbit" movie trilogy say the production company is responsible for killing up to 27 animals, the Associated Press reported. While no animals were harmed during the actual filming, when the cameras weren't rolling the production company kept them on a farm filled with bluffs and other "death traps," the wranglers say.

A spokesman for director Peter Jackson, whose "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is scheduled to launch with a red-carpet premiere on November 28, admitted that some horses, goats chickens and one sheep died at the farm where they were kept for the movie. "We do know those deaths were avoidable and we took steps to make sure it didn't happen again," the spokesman told Sky News. 

More from GlobalPost: When the BRICs Crumble

Animal wrangler Chris Landridge told a particularly sad story to TNT Magazine about a pony named Rainbow. “When I arrived at work in the morning, the pony was still alive but his back was broken. He’d come off a bank at speed and crash-landed. He was in a bad state.”

Landridge and his wife quit their jobs as handlers in February 2011 and the farm was investigated by the American Humane Association in August 2011, TNT Magazine reported.