Dog Man is a 2025 American animated action comedy film based on Dav Pilkey's children's graphic novel series of the same name. Produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Universal Pictures, it is a spin-off and story within a story of Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) and the second film in the Captain Underpants franchise. The film was written and directed by Peter Hastings, and stars the voices of Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Poppy Liu, Stephen Root, Billy Boyd, and Ricky Gervais, with Hastings providing vocal effects for the titular character. The film loosely adapts the first, the second, the third, and the seventh Dog Man books. DreamWorks Animation announced a film adaptation of Dog Man in December 2020, with Hastings set to direct after his experience with Pilkey's works from The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (2018–20). Karen Foster joined as a producer in January 2024, and the cast was announced that September. Dog Man premiered at the 2025 edition of the Festival de l'Alpe d'Huez in Alpe d'Huez, France on January 15, 2025, and was theatrically released in the United States on January 31. The film received positive reviews from critics and has grossed $69 million worldwide, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2025.

Plot

A villainous orange cat named Petey constantly terrorizes Ohkay City, with one of his schemes involving planting a bomb to destroy an abandoned warehouse. Famed cop Officer Knight and his Dog Greg arrive to defuse the bomb, but it explodes, severely injuring Knight's head and Greg's body. Two surgeons save Knight and Greg by stitching Greg's head onto Knight's body, creating the Dog-human hybrid Dog Man. Dog Man quickly becomes beloved for his repeated arrests of Petey, creating a heated rivalry between the two, but becomes lonely and depressed due to the loss of his owner, girlfriend, and house. He takes a tennis ball he used to play with and moves into a doghouse on the city outskirts. After firing his assistant, Petey decides to clone himself to create an assistant just like him. Because Petey misread the instructions, it creates a copy of him as an innocent child with no interest in evildoing, whom he calls Li'l Petey. Petey steals the corpse of an evil telekinetic fish named Flippy and plans to use Living Spray to resurrect him and defeat Dog Man, but Li'l Petey interferes. Petey decides to abandon him in a cardboard box in the middle of the city, where Dog Man finds and decides to adopt him. At his lair, Petey discovers a picture book drawn by Li'l Petey depicting both of them as a family. Feeling guilty, Petey uses his orb-shaped mech, named 80-HD, to kidnap him. Petey reveals to his clone that his abusive father abandoned him as a child. In an attempt to cheer him up, Li'l Petey uses 80-HD to bring Petey's father, called Grampa by Li'l Petey, to his lair. Grampa immediately starts berating Petey, revealing that he has not changed despite Li'l Petey's hopes. Flippy is resurrected at the Living Spray factory after being mishandled by the factory employees, which also causes the factory itself to come to life. Having been reprogrammed by Petey to destroy all do-gooders, he targets Dog Man and his friends, who fight a horde of buildings affected by the Living Spray. Petey reluctantly decides to team up with Dog Man, swapping out Li'l Petey inside 80-HD with himself. Flippy decides to drop him into a volcano, but Li'l Petey arrives and shows him a comic book depicting them as friends, making him drop his evil ways. Dog Man sacrifices his old tennis ball to save Petey from falling in the lava. While Flippy gets arrested, Petey is pardoned as a do-gooder for his actions. Refusing to be considered a do-gooder, he and Li'l Petey return to their lair to find that Grampa took everything except for Li'l Petey's books. Petey decides to share custody of his son with Dog Man, and he heads back with a new outlook on life.

Voice cast

Peter Hastings as the vocal effects of Dog Man, a hybrid between a Dog and a police officer who was created as a result of a medical operation that fused an injured Officer Knight together with his pet Dog, Greg. Keeping in line with the source material, Dog Man does not speak, although Hastings still provides his barks and expressions. Hastings also voices Officer Knight, a police officer whose body from the neck down is used to create Dog Man, and also provides the vocal effects of Greg, Knight's Dog whose head is used to create Dog Man. Pete Davidson as Petey, a quick-witted and arrogant orange cat who is Dog Man's archenemy and the self-proclaimed "world's most evilest cat". Lucas Hopkins Calderon as Li'l Petey, a kind-hearted kitten clone of Petey and Dog Man's adopted son and sidekick. Lil Rel Howery as Chief, the short-tempered police chief of the station Dog Man works at. Isla Fisher as Sarah Hatoff, a news reporter. Billy Boyd as Seamus, Sarah's cameraman. Ricky Gervais as Flippy the Fish, a fish with telekinesis. Stephen Root as Grampa, Petey's father. Poppy Liu as Butler, Petey's former assistant. Cheri Oteri as the Mayor of Ohkay City, who frequently berates Chief and Dog Man's police work. Melissa Villaseñor as the realtor who sells Officer Knight's house. George Beard and Harold Hutchins, the in-universe creators of Dog Man and Captain Underpants, make a brief appearance; George appears in a silent role while Kelly Stables provides the voice of Harold. He was previously voiced by Thomas Middleditch in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

Production

On December 9, 2020, DreamWorks Animation (DWA) announced that a film based on the Captain Underpants spin-off graphic novel series Dog Man was in development, with Peter Hastings attached to direct after his experience with Dav Pilkey's works from The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants (2018–20). On January 29, 2024, following the release date announcement, DreamWorks announced that Karen Foster would serve as producer. On September 17, 2024, with 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. 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). Unlike Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017), 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 (2019) and Spirit Untamed (2021), along with marketing custom animation for Trolls World Tour (2020) and providing additional production assets for The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021), The Bad Guys (2022), and Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024). Nate Wragg was the production designer. The film's score was composed by Tom Howe.

Marketing

In May 2024, Jakks Pacific and its costume division Disguise entered into a partnership with Dav Pilkey to make merchandise based on the Dog Man film along with the comic book series. A book featuring the art of the film was released on December 10, 2024, published by Abrams Books. Universal's marketing campaign for the film began in September 2024 with a trailer on YouTube that accumulated 102 million views. Theatrical trailers were paired with screenings of Transformers One, The Wild Robot, Moana 2, and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Television advertisements targeted families during the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas) during airings of the National Dog Show, holiday specials, New Year's Eye programming, show premieres and finales, and major sports events. The push extended to Amazon devices, Hulu, Peacock, and Hallmark. On January 20, Dog Man was integrated into the Food Network's Kids Baking Championship, with a film-themed baking challenge, sets, and custom animation. Social media analytics firm RelishMix reported that online marketing led to 246.6 million interactions across social media platforms, attracting both fans of the graphic novels and newcomers intrigued by the animation style.

Release

Dog Man had its world premiere during the 2025 edition of the Festival de l'Alpe d'Huez in Alpe d'Huez, France on January 15, 2025, and was released theatrically in the United States on January 31. On January 24, 2025, a week before release, DreamWorks announced that the short film Little Lies and Alibis, a short connected to DWA's film The Bad Guys, would run before Dog Man in theaters; the film also serves as a promotional feature for DWA's following film, The Bad Guys 2, set to release on August 1. As part of Universal's long-term deal with Netflix, the film will stream on Peacock for the first four months of the pay-TV window, before moving to Netflix for the next ten, and returning to Peacock for the remaining four.

Reception

= Box office

= As of February 14, 2025, Dog Man has grossed $57.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $12.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $69.9 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.

= Critical response

= On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 80% of 80 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. 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 65 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

See also

Dog Man (soundtrack)

References

External links

Official website Dog Man at IMDb