DC Goes To The Dogs In ‘Super-Pets’ Trailer

And now for a trailer for a superhero movie that will probably have at least 75% fewer impalings, neck snappings and homages to Evil Dead than Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Warner Bros. just dropped the CinemaCon teaser for DC League of Super-Pets. Between you and me, that’s a needlessly wordy title, as I would have just gone with “DC’s Super-Pets,” but then I always thought the subtitle Dawn of Justice was needlessly redundant.

Anyway, this looks amusing enough, although I’ll admit the main draw for me is Keanu Reeves voicing Batman. Amusingly enough, Reeves would have made an excellent “old man Batman” in the Zack Snyder flick, except that even though he’s eight years older than Ben Affleck (who was barely 41 when cast as Bruce Wayne) Reeves still looks barely old enough to not get carded at an R-rated movie. No matter, controversies aside, Affleck brought his A-game to Batman v Superman and Reeves ended up with a new action franchise in John Wick, so that’s that.

This one stars Dwayne Johnson (voicing Krypto the Super Dog and doing double-DC duty alongside Black Adam this October) and, as required by law, Kevin Hart (speaking of which, when the hell is Sony going to announce a fourth Jumanji?) alongside Kate McKinnon, John Krasinksi (as Superman), Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Marc Maron (currently in DreamWorks’ The Bad Guys), Thomas Middleditch, Ben Schwartz (currently voicing Sonic the Hedgehog), and Reeves. The core hook involves Krypto having to recruit a slew of shelter animals to rescue a kidnapped Justice League.

Since Black Adam ended up moving from July 29 to October 21, which then saw this flick moved from May 20 to July 29 (overseas openings begin on the 27th), Warner Bros. is in a skewed situation whereby this is one of their only two summer movies alongside Elvis on June 24. Elvis looks great, but A) this leaves WB with a pretty shallow seasonal showing and B) gives the kid-friendly likes of The Bad Guys and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 an extra month before heading into demographic competition like Jurassic World: Dominion on June 10 and Lightyear on June 17.

Not to be a broken record, but Disney really, really should have put Pixar’s Turning Red into theaters in mid-March. Anyway, Jared Stern and John Whittington’s DC League of Super-Pets opens on July 29. I’m guessing a theatrical performance on par with Teen Titans Go to the Movies! ($52 million global on a $10 million budget) would be relatively okay even if I’m guessing that (total speculation) the vocal talent may have pushed the cost closer to $20 million. As always, we’ll see.

Stern, a veteran writer/consultant on the “LEGO®” movies, makes his animated feature film directorial debut, directing from a screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator John Whittington, based on characters from DC, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The film is produced by Patricia Hicks, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia, Hiram Garcia and Jared Stern. The executive producers are John Requa, Glenn Ficarra, Nicholas Stoller, Allison Abbate, Chris Leahy, Sharon Taylor and Courtenay Valenti.

Stern’s creative team includes production designer Kim Taylor (“The LEGO® Ninjago Movie”) and editors David Egan (“Game Night,” “Vacation”) and Jhoanne Reyes (“Teen Titans GO!” “Young Justice”). The music is by Steve Jablonsky (the “Transformers” films).

Warner Bros. Pictures Presents A Seven Bucks Production, “DC League of Super-Pets.” The film will be released by Warner Bros. Pictures in theaters internationally beginning 27 July 2022 and in North America on July 29, 2022.