The topic of this page has a wikia of its own: Dog Man.
- “Part dog, part man, all hero.”
- ―The film's tagline.
Dog Man is a American animated superhero comedy film based on the Dav Pilkey's graphic novel series of the same name. Written and directed by Peter Hastings, the film is a spin-off and story within a story of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, as well as being the second overall feature film in the Captain Underpants franchise.[2] The film loosely adapts the first, third, and seventh Dog Man books.
Synopsis[]
When a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner are injured together on the job, a harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together and Dog Man is born. Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve--and fetch, sit and roll over. As Dog Man embraces his new identity and strives to impress his Chief, he must stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat. Petey's latest plan is to clone himself, creating the kitten Lil Petey, to double his ability to do crime stuff. Things get complicated, though, when Lil Petey forges an unexpected bond with Dog Man. When Lil Petey falls into the clutches of a common enemy, Dog Man and Petey reluctantly join forces in an action-packed race against time to rescue the young kitten.
Plot[]
Famed cop Officer Knight and his dog, Greg, are on the pursuit of a villainous orange cat named Petey the Cat who constantly terrorizes OhKay City, and his latest scheme involves planting a bomb to destroy the Abandoned Expendable Warehouse. Knight attempts to defuse the bomb, after Greg told him what wire to cut but asked wait aren’t dogs colorblind when he cuts the wrong wire and it explodes, severely injuring his head and Night being dead as well as Greg's body. The duo are rushed to the hospital as Sarah records their news story, and When Greg survives when the doctors decide to cut off Greg’s head and sew it onto Knight’s body, becoming a dog-human hybrid called Dog Man.
When Knight's old home is sold off and his girlfriend Alice leaves, Greg Aka Dog Man is forced to move elsewhere, whilst managing to earn the city’s favor as he first stops Petey with a vacuum chasing it into the water he is sent into cat jail as he escapes by a seasaw boost and Greg must respond and respect by repeatedly stopping Petey again going to cat jail as the seasaw is gone however balloons are being passed and Petey takes all of them making him escape again dog man is again back whenever he instigates one of his schemes, causing a non-stop rivalry between the two, continuing to send Petey to Cat Jail much to the frustration of Chief, who gets jealous of Dog Man's popularity. However, the Mayor also gets frustrated that Petey keeps escaping, so she puts Dog Man's job at stake. Petey’s latest scheme involves reviving a dead fish named Flippy, who was once a powerful telekinetic villain.
However, after firing his butler, Petey realizes he needs someone like him to put up with Dog Man and purchases a cloning machine to do the job, but his clone ends up being a small kitten due to Petey not reading all the directions given to him, the cloning machine has an undo button sold separately through. The kitten, Li'l Petey, is entirely innocent (and a little annoying), much to Petey’s frustration, And Always Says “Papa”all the time even sabotaging his attempt to shoot Flippy into the smoke stack of the Living Spray Factory The bigger one is the real smoke stack and the smaller one is not a smoke stack in order to revive him. Flippy is dropped into the non smoke stack. Petey attempts to abandon him by playing the "new home" game, the first owner didn’t like him after he was slightly annoying but Li'l Petey is soon adopted by Dog man and bonds with him.
Back at Petey's evil lair, he soon finds a story written by Li'l Petey before he was abandoned. Stricken with remorse, though not explicitly showing it, Petey builds and uses 80-HD to find Li'l Petey at Dog Man's house and retrieve him (mostly to use as bait for Dog Man). Before going to bed, Petey explains to Li'l Petey that his own father abandoned him and his mom when he was younger. Feeling sorry for his papa, Li'l Petey tells 80-HD to bring Petey's father Grampa to his lair in hopes of reconciliation, but Grampa is still the same jerk as Petey described. Petey no longer yearns for Grampa's support and leaves him with Li'l Petey and 80-HD to go and fight Dog Man, who realized that L'll Petey has gone missing, and he and news reporter Sarah Hatoff search for him.
However, Flippy is accidentally revived and soon wrecks havoc on the city by bringing buildings to life One of them says Gooba Gabba with "Living Spray." He soon comes across Dog Man and Petey and kidnaps Li'l Petey with his telekinesis before leaving. Forced to team up, Dog Man and Petey confront Flippy in an epic fight with their Mecha Mail Man against the Beastly Buildings. Things quickly backfire when they get overpowered and nearly get crushed, but Li'l Petey saves them with 80-HD. However, he hits a building and crashlands.
Infuriated, Flippy proceeds to hunts down the group of do-gooders as they rush to Li'l Petey, relieved that he survived. As Flippy's getting near, Petey decides to sacrifice himself to save his kid, and the fish tries to use his telekinesis to drop Petey into a volcano. But Li'l Petey, alongside Dog Man, takes matters into his own hands and against all odds, manages to redeem Flippy by making him question his evil ways with a comic he made about him and Flippy. However, Flippy slowly loses his evil powers which causes Petey to nearly fall into the volcano, but Dog Man decides to sacrifice and use Greg's old tennis ball as a projectile and aims it at Petey in Robo-Suit Mode, saving him. Petey is pardoned afterwards for being a do-gooder, but he believes he can't be good because of the evil path he took.
Petey takes Li'l Petey back to his secret lab when they see Grampa drive away in a moving van. They go inside to find all their stuff stolen by Grampa, except Li'l Petey's comics. The Undo button has arrived but Petey throws it away. The father-and-son duo walk to Dog Man's house. Li'l Petey was right about his father's words about the world being imperfect, but Petey explains to his son that while the world has many problems, it can't be a horrible place because of his presence. At the end, Dog Man is visited by a reformed Petey at Li'l Petey’s request, and Petey gifts him a new tennis ball with Dog Man's name on it. Petey goes on a walk, reflecting on himself, but not before he, his son, and Dog Man share a howling moment. Just as the film seems to be over, Chief (alongside Sarah) exclaims there's one more building on the loose (that being the Laser Pointer Palace The one that says Gooba Gabba).
However, it goes off on a high note with the group dancing with the Laser Pointer Palace, as the film ends with the ending text reading "The End," just like in the original books.
Voice Cast[]
- Peter Hastings as Dog Man/Officer Knight/Greg the Dog
- Pete Davidson as Petey
- Lucas Hopkins Calderon as Li'l Petey
- Lil Rel Howery as Chief
- Isla Fisher as Sarah Hatoff
- Poppy Liu as Butler
- Stephen Root as Grampa
- Billy Boyd as Seamus
- Ricky Gervais as Flippy
- Rahnuma Panthaky as Doctor
- Maggie Wheeler as Nurse Lady
- Luenell Campbell as Milly
- Cheri Oteri as Mayor
- Kate Micucci as Dippy
- Brian 'Hoppy' Hopkins as Big Jim
- Laraine Newman as Scientist
- Melissa Villaseñor as Realtor
- Pearce Bunting as Cheesesteak Guy
- Max Koch as Rocco
- Jana Schmieding as Janet
- Kevin McCann as Grump
- Percy Rustomji as Surfer
- Matthew ''Yung Gravy'' Hauri as Mr. Whiskers
- Kelly Stables as Harold Hutchins
Production[]
On December 9, 2020, it was announced that a Dog Man feature film was in development at DreamWorks Animation with Peter Hastings directing at the helm after his experience with Dav Pilkey's works from The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. On January 29, 2024, Universal Pictures slated the film for a January 31, 2025 release date.[3]
On September 17, 2024, alongside the release of the first trailer, Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Stephen Root, Billy Boyd, and Ricky Gervais were revealed to be part of the film's voice cast.[4][5]
On October 6, 2023, the film was confirmed to be released in 2025, while it was also confirmed that Dog Man and Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie would be animated entirely at partner studios (excluding Sony Pictures Imageworks, who was named as the animation partner for The Bad Guys 2).[6]
Unlike Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which was animated by Mikros Image and Technicolor Animation Productions, the film's animation is handled by Jellyfish Pictures, who previously did the animation for DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming and Spirit Untamed, along with marketing custom animation for Trolls World Tour and providing additional production assets for The Boss Baby: Family Business, The Bad Guys, and Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024). Nate Wragg serves as production designer, after having done so for the first Captain Underpants film, as well as for The Croods: A New Age and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Reception[]
Box office[]
As of March 23, 2025, Dog Man has grossed over $96.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $34.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $130 million.
In the United States and Canada, Dog Man was released alongside Companion and Valiant One and was projected to gross $20–30 million from 3,800 theaters in its opening weekend, with some estimates going as high as $40 million. It made $10.8 million on its first day, including an estimated $1.36 million from Thursday night previews. It debuted to $36 million, topping the box office. The opening was the second biggest for animated films released in January after DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016; $41.8 million) and the third consecutive box office-topping debut for DreamWorks after Kung Fu Panda 4 and The Wild Robot (both 2024). Exit polling indicated that 45% of attendees saw the film because it looked "fun" and "entertaining" and a third bought tickets because they were fans of the IP. Men accounted for 52% of the opening weekend audience, with those under 35 comprising 70% and premium large format screens contributing 22%. During Super Bowl weekend, in which movies in the United States regularly perform below average, the film grossed $13.8 million, dropping a bigger-than-expected 61.6% while remaining atop the box office. During its four-day third weekend, it made $13.4 million and finished in third place.[7][8]
Critical response[]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 80 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10.[9] The website's consensus reads: "Realizing Dav Pilkey's canine creation with a frenzied energy that never lets up, Dog Man will delight kids while throwing their parents a bone."
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 63 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
Planned Sequel[]
In License Global page has plans for a sequel,[11] “Dog Man” has also inspired a movie from DreamWorks Animation, released in January this year. The film received positive reviews from critics and a second film is already at the planning stage.
Trivia[]
- Along with the live-action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, The Bad Guys 2 and Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie, this marks the first time that DreamWorks Animation released four feature films in the same year.
- This movie served as DreamWorks' third superhero film, following Megamind (2010) and Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017).
- This is the second DreamWorks Animation film to be released in January, the first being Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016).
- Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie became DreamWorks' tenth film to become a franchise, after The Prince of Egypt, Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Trolls, The Croods, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron and The Boss Baby.
- This is the second DreamWorks movie distributed by Universal Pictures to use the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, after 2019's Abominable.
- This is the tenth DreamWorks Animation film not to be composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, Hans Zimmer, John Powell, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Henry Jackman, Lorne Balfe, Steve Mazzaro, Theodore Shapiro, Daniel Pemberton, or Stephanie Econnomu as its score was composed by Tom Howe (who has previously collaborated with the Gregson-Williams brothers as an additional composer for some of their films).
- During its theatrical release, the movie was accompanied by The Bad Guys short film Little Lies and Alibis in which serves as the teaser for The Bad Guys 2. This is the first DreamWorks Animation movie to be accompanied by a short during its theatrical release since Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which featured Almost Home.
- The DreamWorks logo in this film has Roz and Baby Brightbill replacing The Bad Guys and Gingy being added on top of Donkey.
- According to the art book, the movie was originally supposed to be stop motion (which would have made it the third DreamWorks Animation film to be in this medium, after Chicken Run and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and the first non-Aardman stop motion film made by DreamWorks).
- This is Jellyfish Pictures' last collaboration with DreamWorks prior to the former studio's closure on March 11, two months after the release of this film.
- Unlike the original version, some international dubs include George and Harold doing narration, inserts and commentaries through the movie.
- This is the first theatrical DreamWorks Animation film in the mid-2020s (2023-26) where its main antagonist is male instead of being female; Flippy, in this case (not counting Orion and the Dark, as it was exclusively released on Netflix).
References[]
- ↑ "Dog Man – Financial Information". The Numbers.
- ↑ "Dog Man Exclusive". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved on December 9, 2020.
- ↑ "Movie based on books from Captain Underpants". Deadline. Retrieved on January 29, 2024.
- ↑ "First Trailer for Animated Film". Cinelinx. Retrieved on September 17, 2024.
- ↑ "Dog Man Cast". SYFY. Retrieved on September 17, 2024.
- ↑ "Upcoming Dreamworks Releases". Cartoon Brew. Retrieved on June 10, 2023.
- ↑ Rubin, Rebecca (January 29, 2025). "Box Office: 'Dog Man' Chases $30 Million Opening Weekend, Sci-Fi Thriller 'Companion' Targets $10 Million". Variety.
- ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 29, 2025). "'Dog Man' To Bark Louder Than 'Companion' At Weekend Box Office With $20M+ – Preview". Deadline Hollywood.
- ↑ "Dog Man - Rotten Tomatoes".
- ↑ "Dog Man - Metacritic".
- ↑ ‘Dog Man’ Apparel, Cards and Calendars Coming to U.K. Market
External links[]
[]
v - e - d  | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|