Mr. Gere said he was offered the script a few years ago, at a time when he was looking for films that his young son, Homer, could enjoy.  “It had to do with these questions of life and death and loyalty,” said Mr. Gere, who in a recent telephone interview was careful not to use the word pet to describe the shelter dog his family keeps.  “It does imply a hierarchy of import, doesn’t it?” Mr. Gere said. “I don’t know who’s the master of who in these relationships.”  After joining the film in the role of the professor as well as a producer, Mr. Gere recruited Mr. Hallstrom, who had recently directed him in “The Hoax,” a 2007 film about the forger Clifford Irving.  Mr. Hallstrom, who broke through in the United States with his Swedish coming-of-age film, “My Life as a Dog,” in which the young protagonist is shattered to learn of the death of his family’s hound, said he was wary of taking on material that was in any way similar.  “I had taken pride in being absolutely unsentimental with ‘My Life as a Dog,’ and this was a very sentimental story,” Mr. Hallstrom said in a telephone interview.  But he added that he found the title character in “Hachi” as compelling as any of the humans he’d focused on in his previous films.  “I don’t point fingers at the different incarnations of life,” Mr. Hallstrom said. “Whether it is eccentrics or outsiders or dogs, I want to be as truthful as possible in depicting them.” The film was shot primarily in Rhode Island, using three Akitas to play the different stages of Hachi’s life and his varying dispositions: one dog that was good at sitting calmly, a second that was trained to walk slowly and a third that “ran a lot and jumped a lot and licked people’s faces,” Mr. Hallstrom said. Mr. Gere described his introduction to his four-legged co-stars by an animal trainer as if he were being initiated into a rock star’s entourage.  “He said, ‘Don’t touch them, don’t reach out, don’t even look at them in that first meeting,’ ” Mr. Gere recalled. “ ‘Just come and hang with us and be yourself.’ ”  There was, Mr. Gere said, “a certain amount of anxiety, of would we get along? They cannot be bought.” But after about three days, he said, “One of the dogs came over and put her head right on my lap. And that was a big moment — I was accepted in the pack.”  But “Hachi” was not as eagerly embraced by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The studio, which controlled the film’s theatrical distribution when Mr. Gere joined the project as a producer, opted not to release it in American theaters. (The movie was shown at a handful of film festivals and made available on DVD.)  “You think of all the people who really love their animals, love their dogs, love their cats, would embrace this specific movie,” Mr. Gere said. “But Sony just had no imagination for it. It was really bizarre.”  Through a spokesman, Sony declined to comment for this article. Mr. Hallstrom could only speculate about the reasoning behind the studio’s decision.  “It’s a very small movie, one could say, and Richard may not be the romantic draw that he used to be,” he said. Ultimately, Mr. Hallstrom said the studio’s strategy was “a mistake of being overly worried about the size of the movie as opposed to the emotional impact of it.”  The Hallmark Channel, which broadcasts about 22 original movies a year and is available to 90 million cable subscribers nationally, quickly stepped into the breach. The opportunity offered by Sony to present the debut of a film with recognizable names, and a story line that resonated with its audience, was essentially irresistible.  “It was one of those, ‘Would you like to buy it?’ — ‘Yes,’ ” said Michelle Vicary, the channel’s senior vice president for acquisitions and scheduling. “We didn’t even wait for them to finish the sentence.”  Mr. Gere said that though all filmmakers would prefer their work to play in theaters, he was glad his dog story had found a home, and that his son, now 10, was able to appreciate it. For his part, Mr. Hallstrom seemed impressed with his Akita actors, particularly when compared with his family’s two Cavalier King Charles spaniels .  “The Akitas had a very wonderful, reserved personality and stoic demeanor,” Mr. Hallstrom said. “You can’t say that about the Cavalier King Charles. They seem to be able to run away with anyone.”  A version of this article appears in print on September 25, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Film Has Two Big Names And a Dog, but No Big Screens. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Richard Gere’s latest film, “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” directed by Lasse Hallstrom, will make its United States debut on Sunday on the Hallmark Channel.