James Gunn Celebrates ‘Superman’ Dog Adoption Surge
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… Krypto driving up canine adoption rates? Just one week after “Superman” launched in theaters, fans are showing their obsession with the hero’s sidekick — who by the way is canon in the comic books — by trying to find a Krypto of their own. The app Woofz, which helps with dog training, reported that the search “adopt a dog near me” skyrocketed a whopping 513% following the film‘s premiere last weekend. Additionally, “rescue adoption near me” went up 163% and “adopted a puppy” was up 31%.
Writer/director James Gunn took to X to declare his elation over these statistics, writing, “This film has been a barrage of blessings for me: this one may be the greatest.”
Just last year, on the same platform, Gunn explained how the super dog was based on his own pet. “Krypto was inspired by our dog Ozu, who we adopted shortly after I started writing ‘Superman,’” he wrote. While the dog in the film is CGI, Ozu (a terrier mix) was captured with 3D imaging to help create the character… and based on this photo with Rachel Brosnahan the real life Ozu got plenty of love on set.
“Ozu, who came from a hoarding situation in a backyard with 60 other dogs & never knew human beings, was problematic to say the least,” Gunn continued. “He immediately came in & destroyed our home, our shoes, our furniture – he even ate my laptop. It took a long time before he would even let us touch him. I remember thinking, ‘Gosh, how difficult would life be if Ozu had superpowers?’ – and thus Krypto came into the script & changed the shape of the story as Ozu was changing my life. What better time to debut the not-so-good-good-boy Krypto than #AdoptAShelterDog month. Btw, Ozu today, is, fairly often, a very good boy.”
#AdoptaShelterDog month, by the way, will occur again in October, although super terriers seem to be sending those numbers way up early this year.
Also up is the “Superman” box office take, which has already delivered $177.7 million domestically as of Friday and will most certainly pass $200 million in North America by the weekend’s close. Worldwide, it has already amassed more than $300 million.
