Los Angeles, Calif., Oct 3, 2017 / 13:18 pm
Mitch Davis had the best intentions for his career and family life. He was an executive at the Disney and Columbia movie studios in the 1980s. He wanted to make family films, and he made the effort to be home around his kids, while many Hollywood colleagues logged countless extra hours at their offices.
But Davis was stressed at work and at home. He felt compelled to help make crassly commercial movies to boost the studios' profits. He also frequently found himself wearing noise-canceling headphones to block out the sound of his children as he read a never-ending pile of scripts in a corner of his house.
Something had to change. The catalyst for improvements came in the most unlikely way: with the arrival of a stray dog at his home. Taking in a canine visitor they named Pluto, Davis found that its joyous presence had a profound effect on all their lives, and the transformation Pluto inspired forms the basis of his new movie "The Stray," opening nationwide this weekend.
"That dog first started healing our family, and then saving it when we were struck by lightning on a camping trip," says Davis. "There are two strays in the movie actually, the stray dog and the stray dad. I was headed in the wrong direction. There's nothing like a bolt of lightning to center your priorities, and the dog reminded us what mattered most, and that was people and the members of our immediate family."